Professor Lesley Hoyles

@bugsinyourguts.bsky.social

2019 Followers 401 Following

And all this science I don't understand, it's just my job five days a week. Professor of Microbiome and Systems Biology @ Nottingham Trent University. 🏳️‍🌈 Working predominantly on the human gut microbiota. All views my own.

Start of email from a predatory journal... "Dear Dr. Lesley Hoyles, I hope everything is good as bright as smile your face." I am known for my resting bitch face.
Comparison of 137 Klebsiella pneumoniae species complex (KpSC) isolates recovered in Uganda. (a) Dendrogram showing the genomic relatedness of the isolates, including 31 we sequenced for our study. Also includes Kleborate virulence and resistance scores. (b) Bar graph summarizing Kleborate capsule (K) type data for the 137 isolates. (c) Bar graph summarizing MLST data for 329 KpSC isolates recovered in Uganda.
2nd KLEBS meeting will be convened in Cape Town, South Africa in 2027! When? November 17-19, 2027 Where? Century City Conference Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
Almost half of all applications are from the US.
Poster on our work showing that growing uropathogens in urine under hypoxia produces clinically relevant metabolomic profiles.
2346079 genomes (96 %) represent high-quality, short-read assemblies.
Prevalence of the complete leupeptin (leup) BGC across the Klebsiella oxytoca species complex. PhyloPhlAn v3.1.68 was used to generate a phylogenetic tree (low diversity; rooted at the midpoint) from the Bakta-annotated proteomes of 2716 genome sequences available from AllTheBacteria v1: K. michiganensis, n=1298 (1176 BGC-positive, 90.6 %); K. oxytoca, n=865; K. grimontii, n=443 (4 BGC-positive, 0.9 %); K. pasteurii, n=82 (2 BGC-positive, 2.4 %); K. spallanzanii, n=12; Klebsiella taxon 3, n=7 (4 BGC-positive, 71.4 %); Klebsiella taxon 1, n=5; K. huaxiensis, n=4. Only genomes encoding contiguous transporter–LeupA–LeupB–LeupC–LeupD sequences were annotated as having a complete leup BGC. The inner coloured circle represents Klebsiella species, while the outer circle shows those genomes that encode the complete leup BGC (refer to colour legends).
Proposed mechanisms through which metabolites produced by Klebsiella spp. interact with the mammalian histamine GPCRs HRH4 and HRH1, and the responses elicited. Some strains of K. planticola, K. ornithinolytica, K. terrigena and K. aerogenes encode a histidine decarboxylase (HDC) that converts histidine to histamine in the skeletal muscles of fish; a histidine (His)/histamine antiporter facilitates uptake of L-histidine (light-blue dots) and export of histamine (red dots) out of the bacterial cell. When histamine-rich fish is ingested, the histamine interacts with HRH4 on mast cells in the gut to produce a proinflammatory response, which can lead to respiratory and cardiac distress in some individuals. High-histamine-producing, K. aerogenes-rich microbiotas in mice have been shown to activate HRH4, leading to mast-cell infiltration and abdominal pain (i.e. visceral hypersensitivity) in these animals. Activation of the leupeptin operon by N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac; red diamonds) in K. michiganensis, via the nan operon (nanRATEK), leads to the production of leupeptin (a protease inhibitor; dark-blue dots), pyrazinones and pyrazines. Leupeptin produced by K. michiganensis may increase survival of the bacterium during infections because the leupeptin inhibits subunit beta2i of the immunoproteasome, thereby decreasing immune activity. Pyrazinone 3 (yellow dots) is a selective agonist of HRH4, potentially eliciting histamine release from mast cells and activating proinflammatory and allergic responses similar to those seen via activation of HRH4 by histamine. Presence of HRH4 and HRH1 (plus HRH2 and HRH3) on a range of proinflammatory cells suggests that there is still much work to be done with respect to host–microbiota interactions in the context of histamine production.
Waitrose magazine discussing the effects of SCFAs on the gut-brain axis, specifically their protective effects on the blood-brain barrier.
Summary of 17 different Klebsiella spp. found in different sample types - 'Animal, bird, insect, plant' or environment. Data were retrieved from the sandpiper database.
Black bowl with green bacteria in the middle.
Graphs showing ridiculous number of reviews published on the gut-brain axis in recent years, though for last few years the percentage has dropped below 40 %.
In-depth genotypic and phenotypic characterization of clinical pathogens contributing to the antimicrobial resistance burden in low- and middle-income countries is often not possible due to limited resources. Characterized 31 P. aeruginosa isolates recovered from catheter-associated urinary tract infections in an Egyptian hospital over a 3 month period. Even with small number of isolates, genetically diverse isolates and high-risk clones (i.e. ST357 and ST773) of P. aeruginosa are present in this clinical setting, and novel resistance determinants can be readily detected in genomic data. We provide the first report of a pBT2436-like megaplasmid in a clinical P. aeruginosa isolate recovered in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Picard facepalm.
Lyrics quoted from the Beach Boys "You still believe in me" and Martha Wainwright's "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" (abbreviated to BMFA in my thesis acknowledgements, to avoid my mother shouting at me for swearing in print).
Miss Piggy headbutting a desk.
Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham asking "...am I thwarted?"
Job advert for postdoctoral position at University College Cork, working on phages in the research team of Professor Andrey Shkoporov.
Picture of Miss Piggy asking "What the ...".
Advert for Applied Microbiology International placement scholarship for undergraduate students.