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Each gram of human stool contains >109 viruslike particles, most of which are still unidentified. To begin to understand the nature of this population, researchers in Philadelphia undertook a longitudinal analysis of the gut virome of a single individual.
The researchers analyzed 24 samples obtained from a healthy male at 16 time points over 2.5 years. Using deep metagenomic sequencing, they were able to identify 478 consensus DNA sequences, which appeared to correspond mostly to viral (bacteriophage) genomes. Approximately 13% of these consensus genomes were consistent with members of the Microviridae, Podoviridae, Myoviridae, and Siphoviridae, but the majority could not be classified. No eukaryotic cell viruses were definitively identified…