Chandri N. Yandava

TL;DR: The Human Microbiome Project has analysed the largest cohort and set of distinct, clinically relevant body habitats so far, finding the diversity and abundance of each habitat’s signature microbes to vary widely even among healthy subjects, with strong niche specialization both within and among individuals.

TL;DR: Results from an initial reference genome sequencing of 178 microbial genomes allow for ~40% of random sequences from the microbiome of the gastrointestinal tract to be associated with organisms based on the match criteria used, suggesting that the authors are still far from saturating microbial species genetic data sets.

TL;DR: Patients with a family of DNA sequence variants in the core promoter of the gene ALOX5 associated with diminished promoter-reporter activity in tissue culture may have diminished gene transcription, and therefore decreased AlOX5 product production and a diminished clinical response to treatment with a drug targeting this pathway.

TL;DR: Polymorphisms of the beta(2)-AR may influence airway responses to regular inhaled beta-agonist treatment as well as other differences in asthma outcomes that were investigated.

TL;DR: The complete sequence and comparative analysis of the genomes of two representative P. aeruginosa strains isolated from cystic fibrosis patients whose genetic disorder predisposes them to infections by this pathogen suggest that niche adaptation is a major evolutionary force influencing the composition of bacterial genomes.