Single cell viral tagging of <i>Faecalibacterium prausnitzii</i> reveals rare bacteriophages omitted by other techniques.

ABSTRACT: The associations of the gut microbiome and virome with human health and disease are increasingly numerous and clear. The mechanistic roles of bacteriophages (phages) in the microbiome, however, are especially unclear, as their cultivation is exceedingly difficult and their diversity so immense. We use viral tagging (VT), a technique wherein fluorescently stained uncultivated viruses are allowed to adsorb to host cells and then host cells are singly sorted. This method identifies interacting phage-bacteria pairs to better sample and characterize the phages in human stool samples from healthy and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)-affected patients. First, we apply VT to uncultivated bacteria from a healthy human sample, demonstrating far-reaching ability to observe diverse bacteria and phages

SUBMITTER: Campbell DE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12323421 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature