@article {46698,
	title = {Comprehensive metagenomic insights into a unique mass gathering and bathing event reveals transient influence on a riverine ecosystem},
	journal = {Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety},
	volume = {202},
	year = {2020},
	month = {OCT },
	pages = {110938},
	type = {Article},
	abstract = {<p>The religious mass gathering and bathing can pose a multitude of significant public health challenges and lead to severe alterations in the river microbial ecology. The Pandharpur Wari is an annual pilgrimage of Maharashtra, India, where millions of devotees carry the footprints of the saint-poets and pay their obeisance to Lord Vitthal on the 11th day of moon{\textquoteright}s waxing phase (Ashadi Ekadashi). As a part of the ritual, the engrossed devotees, walk over 250 km, take a first holy dip in a sacred river Indrayani at Alandi and secondly in Bhima River at Pandharpur. The MinION-based shotgun metagenomic approach was employed to examine the impact of spiritual mass bathing on environmental changes (concerning the river microbial community structure and functions); and public health aspects (in terms of changes in the pathogenic potential and antibiotic resistance). The analysis of bathing and post-bathing samples of both the rivers revealed alterations in the alpha and beta diversity, indicating significant spatiotemporal variations in the overall microbial structure and function. Furthermore, the analysis revealed up to 80\% of differences in the abundance of virulence genes between the bathing and post bathing samples. We observed parallel increase of priority skin and enteric pathogens (ranging from 11\% to 80\%) such as Acinetobacter baumannii, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa during the bathing event. Moreover, we observed a significant increase in the antibiotic resistance in the bathing samples of Bhima and Indrayani rivers respectively. Altogether, this is the first comprehensive metagenomic study unravelling the influence of religious mass-bathing on the riverine ecosystem.</p>
},
	keywords = {Antibiotic resistance, Mass bathing, MinION sequencing, Priority pathogens, Virulence genes},
	issn = {0147-6513},
	doi = {10.1016/j.ecoenv.2020.110938},
	author = {Yadav, Rakeshkumar and Rajput, Vinay and Gohil, Kushal and Khairnar, Krishna and Dharne, Mahesh}
}
@article {46727,
	title = {Plant-pathogen interactions: microRNA-mediated trans-kingdom gene regulation in fungi and their host plants},
	journal = {Genomics},
	volume = {112},
	year = {2020},
	month = {SEP},
	pages = {3021-3035},
	type = {Article},
	abstract = {<p>MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been prevalently studied in plants, animals, and viruses. However, recent studies show evidences of miRNA-like RNAs (milRNAs) in fungi as well. It is known that after successful infection, pathogens hijack the host machinery and use it for their own growth and multiplication. Alternatively, resistant plants can overcome the pathogen attack by a variety of mechanisms. Based on this prior knowledge, we computationally predicted milRNAs from 13 fungi, and identified their targets in transcriptomes of the respective fungi as well as their host plants. The expressions of the milRNAs and targets were confirmed using qRT-PCR. We found that plant miRNAs targeted fungal virulence genes, while fungal milRNAs targeted plant resistance genes; corroborating miRNA-mediated trans-kingdom gene regulation and the roles of miRNAs in plantpathogen interactions. Transgenic plants with miRNAs targeting fungal virulence genes, or anti-sense of fungal milRNAs, would be expected to be highly resistant to the fungal pathogens.</p>
},
	keywords = {Disease resistance, Fungal miRNAs, qRT-PCR, Resistance genes, Target prediction, Virulence genes},
	issn = {0888-7543},
	doi = {10.1016/j.ygeno.2020.05.021},
	author = {Mathur, Monika and Nair, Aswathy and Kadoo, Narendra}
}
