{"id":67650,"date":"2020-09-05T09:21:46","date_gmt":"2020-09-05T09:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/virusreports.net\/every-human-gut-may-have-a-unique-viral-composition\/"},"modified":"2020-09-05T09:21:46","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T09:21:46","slug":"every-human-gut-may-have-a-unique-viral-composition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/virusreports.net\/every-human-gut-may-have-a-unique-viral-composition\/","title":{"rendered":"Every human gut may have a unique viral composition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The first comprehensive database of the communities of viruses, or \u201cviromes,\u201d living in our guts reveals that they vary enormously from person to person. The database offers new opportunities to identify viruses that could potentially play a role in treating antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. <\/p>\n

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<\/source><\/source><\/source>\"A<\/img><\/picture><\/span>Share on Pinterest<\/span><\/a><\/hl-share-overlay><\/span>
Research suggests that each human gut may have a unique composition, with viral diversity being particularly high in infants.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The bacteria that colonize the human digestive system are known to have a profound effect on health, but the viruses that coexist alongside them are likely to be just as important<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the newly created Gut Virome Database (GVD) from Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, 97.7%<\/a> of the viruses in our gut are bacteriophages, meaning that they use bacteria as hosts in which to replicate themselves.<\/p>\n

Early in the 20th century, scientists began to investigate the potential of bacteriophages<\/a> to combat bacterial infections, but the discovery of antibiotics<\/a> largely superseded their work.<\/p>\n

Now, with the growing threat of antibiotic resistance, there has been a resurgence of interest in bacteriophage therapy.<\/p>\n

Scientists have discovered a great deal about the \u201cbacteriome\u201d \u2014 the community of bacteria that make their home in the gut \u2014 but characterizing the virome has proved more challenging. <\/p>\n

Bacteria have certain genetic sequences in common, which makes identifying their DNA relatively easy, but there is no such universal marker for viruses.<\/p>\n

To make it easier to study the virome, microbiologists at OSU decided to establish a database dedicated to human gut viruses.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The team built the GVD using genetic data from 32 studies that aimed to identify gut viruses in a total of 1,986 people living in 16 different countries. <\/p>\n

After processing the data to account for the wide variety of different methods that these studies used, they identified 33,242 \u201cunique viral populations,\u201d which are the viral equivalent of species.<\/p>\n

On average, each viral metagenome \u2014 the collective viral genome in a sample from an individual\u2019s gut \u2014 contained 542 viral populations.<\/p>\n

No single viral population was present in every metagenome. In fact, the researchers found the most widespread viral population in only 39% of the metagenomes. <\/strong><\/p>\n

In their new study paper, published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe<\/a><\/em>, they suggest that each person\u2019s gut virome is highly personalized and most likely unique.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The team will continually update the database to provide a free resource for other researchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve established a robust starting point to see what the virome looks like in humans,\u201d says study co-author Olivier Zablocki, a postdoctoral researcher at OSU. \u201cIf we can characterize the viruses that are keeping us healthy, we might be able to harness that information to design future therapeutics for pathogens that can\u2019t otherwise be treated with drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking to the future, bacteriophages (or \u201cphages\u201d) isolated from the guts of healthy people have the potential to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. They could also help restore a healthy balance to microbial communities in the gut.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPhages are part of a vast interconnected network of organisms that live with us and on us, and when broad spectrum antibiotics are used to fight against infection, they also harm our natural microbiome,\u201d says senior study author Matthew Sullivan. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are building out a toolkit to scale our understanding and capabilities to use phages to tune disturbed microbiomes back toward a healthy state,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Using the new database, the researchers conducted the first survey of changes in the diversity of gut viruses across the human lifespan.<\/p>\n

They found that in Western individuals with a good health status, viral diversity was high in infants before the age of 3 years, before dropping in childhood. It then rose as people entered adulthood, before declining after 65 years of age.<\/p>\n

The authors attribute the rich diversity of viruses in infants\u2019 guts to their weak, underdeveloped immune systems. Infants may also lack the bacteria that typically protect the lining of the gut from viral infection in later life.<\/p>\n

The researchers believe that their database will be an important tool for investigating how the gut virome changes over time and its effect on individuals\u2019 vulnerability to particular diseases:<\/p>\n

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\u201cFor example, here, we used the GVD database to uncover the age-dependent patterns of virome diversity in healthy, Western individuals. However, the GVD could also have much broader implications, including helping better classify individuals\u2019 native gut microbiomes and viromes to determine how it affects a person\u2019s predisposition to diseases like COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 The study authors<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Interestingly, the scientists discovered that people living in non-Western countries had more diverse gut viral populations than Westerners. <\/p>\n

Other research has shown that non-Westerners who move to Western countries lose some of their gut microbial diversity, which suggests that diet or other environmental factors may play a role in shaping the virome. <\/p>\n

In addition, the database revealed that individuals in good health had more diverse viral populations than those who were sick.<\/p>\n

\u201cA general rule of thumb for ecology is that higher diversity leads to a healthier ecosystem,\u201d says first author Ann Gregory, who worked on the new database while she was a graduate student at OSU. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that more diversity of viruses and microbes is usually associated with a healthier individual. And we saw that healthier individuals tend to have a higher diversity of viruses, indicating that these viruses may be potentially doing something positive and having a beneficial role.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The authors acknowledge that the GVD has some limitations in terms of its scope. For example, they write that its representation of different geographic regions and ethnic groups is not yet sufficiently broad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first comprehensive database of the communities of viruses, or \u201cviromes,\u201d living in our guts reveals that they vary enormously from person to person. The database offers new opportunities to identify viruses that could potentially play a role in treating antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. 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