Ocean Sampling Day was initiated by the EU-funded Micro B3 (Marine Microbial Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biotechnology) project to obtain a snapsho

Although colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of death in Morocco, there are no studies of the microbiome changes associated with the disease in the Moroccan population. The aim of our study was to compare the stool microbiome of Moroccan cancer patients with healthy individuals. We analyzed the microbiome composition of samples from 11 CRC patients and 12 healthy individuals by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Principal coordinate analysis of samples revealed defined cancer versus healthy clusters. Our findings showed that cancer samples had higher proportions of Firmicutes (T = 50.5%; N = 28.4%; p = 0.04), specifically of Clostridia (T = 48.3%; N = 19.0%; p = 0.002), and Fusobacteria (T = 0.1%; N = 0.0%; p = 0.02), especially of Fusobacteriia (T = 0.1%; N = 0.0%; p = 0.02), while Bacteroidetes were enriched in healthy samples (T = 35.1%; N = 62.8%; p = 0.06), particularly the class Bacteroidia (T = 35.1%; N = 62.6%; p = 0.06). Porphyromonas, Clostridium, Ruminococcus, Selenomonas, and Fusobacterium were significantly overrepresented in diseased patients, similarly to other studies. Predicted functional information showed that bacterial motility proteins, flagellar assembly, and fatty acid biosynthesis metabolism were significantly overrepresented in cancer patients, while amino acid metabolism and glycan biosynthesis were overrepresented in controls. This suggests that involvement of these functional metagenomes is similar and relevant in the carcinogenesis process, independent of the origin of the samples. Results from this study allowed identification of bacterial taxa relevant to the Moroccan population and encourages larger studies to facilitate population-directed therapeutic approaches.

Genomics is the study of the genetic material that constitutes the genomes of organisms. This genetic material can be sequenced and it provides a powerful tool for the study of human, plant and animal evolutionary history and diseases. Genomics research is becoming increasingly commonplace due to significant advances in and reducing costs of technologies such as sequencing. This has led to new challenges including increasing cost and complexity of data. There is, therefore, an increasing need for computing infrastructure and skills to manage, store, analyze and interpret the data. In addition, there is a significant cost associated with recruitment of participants and collection and processing of biological samples, particularly for large human genetics studies on specific diseases. As a result, researchers are often reluctant to share the data due to the effort and associated cost. In Africa, where researchers are most commonly at the study recruitment, determination of phenotypes and collection of biological samples end of the genomic research spectrum, rather than the generation of genomic data, data sharing without adequate safeguards for the interests of the primary data generators is a concern. There are substantial ethical considerations in the sharing of human genomics data. The broad consent for data sharing preferred by genomics researchers and funders does not necessarily align with the expectations of researchers, research participants, legal authorities and bioethicists. In Africa, this is complicated by concerns about comprehension of genomics research studies, quality of research ethics reviews and understanding of the implications of broad consent, secondary analyses of shared data, return of results and incidental findings. Additional challenges with genomics research in Africa include the inability to transfer, store, process and analyze large-scale genomics data on the continent, because this requires highly specialized skills and expensive computing infrastructure which are often unavailable. Recently initiatives such as H3Africa and H3ABioNet which aim to build capacity for large-scale genomics projects in Africa have emerged. Here we describe such initiatives, including the challenges faced in the generation, analysis and sharing of genomic data and how these challenges are being overcome

COVID-19 is a pandemic infection of the respiratory system caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) was found in many parts of the COVID-19 patients including the stool, suggesting a potential interaction with the host’s gut microbiome. The gut microbiome also plays major roles in immunity and inflammation. It also impacts pulmonary functions through the gut-lung axis. There have been recent reports of the importance of the host microbiome in infection and pathogenicity. The understanding of the gut and lung microbiomes would open the gate to new therapeutic approaches.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the draconian measures applied to limit its spread have accelerated the process of digitalizing many activities, including those within the health sector. In Morocco, a developing country in northern Africa, digital health has been deployed extensively, and in a remarkable way, to support the management of the current health crisis. Morocco is taking significant measures to become a key player in the process of achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) goal 3. The government has comprehensively integrated digital technology throughout its coordinated containment and mitigation processes. These processes encompass testing and diagnostics; virus genomic surveillance; telecare of suspected and chronic patients; COVID-19 patient contact tracing and tracking; a laboratory information system for medical material dispatching, biological sample collection, and data processing nationwide; and smart vaccination management. Moreover, the pace of amending legislation for enabling efficient telemedicine practice has been achieved at a record-breaking. The successful implementation of all of these digital health strategies testify to the effectiveness of digitalization for managing the health aspects of the pandemic and for the future development of health systems in Morocco and in the African continent, where digital health and telemedicine is set to become the cornerstone of medical practice.

Argania spinosa (Sapotaceae), an important endemic Moroccan oil tree, is a primary source of argan oil, which has numerous dietary and medicinal proprieties. The plant species occupies the mid-western part of Morocco and provides great environmental and socioeconomic benefits. The complete chloroplast (cp) genome of A. spinosa was sequenced, assembled, and analyzed in comparison with those of two Sapotaceae members. The A. spinosa cp genome is 158,848 bp long, with an average GC content of 36.8%. The cp genome exhibits a typical quadripartite and circular structure consisting of a pair of inverted regions (IR) of 25,945 bp in length separating small single-copy (SSC) and large single-copy (LSC) regions of 18,591 and 88,367 bp, respectively. The annotation of A. spinosa cp genome predicted 130 genes, including 85 protein-coding genes (CDS), 8 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, and 37 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes. A total of 44 long repeats and 88 simple sequence repeats (SSR) divided into mononucleotides (76), dinucleotides (7), trinucleotides (3), tetranucleotides (1), and hexanucleotides (1) were identified in the A. spinosa cp genome. Phylogenetic analyses using the maximum likelihood (ML) method were performed based on 69 protein-coding genes from 11 species of Ericales. The results confirmed the close position of A. spinosa to the Sideroxylon genus, supporting the revisiting of its taxonomic status. The complete chloroplast genome sequence will be valuable for further studies on the conservation and breeding of this medicinally and culinary important species and also contribute to clarifying the phylogenetic position of the species within Sapotaceae.