Massive expansion of human gut bacteriophage diversity.

ABSTRACT: Bacteriophages drive evolutionary change in bacterial communities by creating gene flow networks that fuel ecological adaptions. However, the extent of viral diversity and its prevalence in the human gut remains largely unknown. Here, we introduce the Gut Phage Database, a collection of ∼142,000 non-redundant viral genomes (>10 kb) obtained by mining a dataset of 28,060 globally distributed human gut metagenomes and 2,898 reference genomes of cultured gut bacteria. Host assignment revealed that viral diversity is highest in the Firmicutes phyla and that ∼36% of viral clusters (VCs) are not restricted to a single species, creating gene flow networks across phylogenetically distinct bacterial species. Epidemiological analysis uncovered 280 globally distributed VCs found in at least 5 contine

SUBMITTER: Camarillo-Guerrero LF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7895897 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature