Cell: Scientists have identified more than 140,000 viruses in the human intestine

The human intestine is an extremely complex ecological environment.

Recently, the top journal "cell" published an article entitled Massive expansion of human gut bacteriophage diversity.

First, the researchers analyzed 28,060 globally distributed human intestinal metagenomes and 2898 intestinal bacterial reference genome samples, and used the sequence similarity of known phage and other virus-like features to identify humans based on the biological analysis tools VirFinder and VirSorter.

In order to further improve the quality of the data set, the researchers used a "machine-learning approach" to filter out mobile genetic elements (MGE), and used gene density and hypothetical protein scores to distinguish plasmids and integrative junction elements (ICE).

At the same time, the researchers located 28,060 metagenomes of GPD, conducted the most comprehensive analysis of human intestinal phages, and conducted research based on 280 globally distributed virus clusters (VCs), and found a new height.

The results of this research form the basis of the Intestinal Phage Database (GPD), which will be a valuable resource for future research on bacteriophages and their role in regulating human health.

Reference materials:

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