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| Phage attacking bacteria |
European
researchers have reported the identification of over 140,000 viral species
living in the human gut, more than half of which have never been seen before.
The findings could open up new opportunities for bacteriophages for human
nutrition.
The biodiversity of the human
gut is significant: In addition to bacteria (the microbiome), and fungi (the
mycobiome), the gut also contains hundreds of thousands of viruses called
bacteriophages, which can infect bacteria.
It is known that imbalances in our gutmicrobiome (dysbiosis) may contribute to diseases and conditions such as
Inflammatory Bowel Disease, allergies, and obesity, but our knowledge and
understanding of the interplay between our gut bacteria and the bacteriophages
that infect them is less developed.
important to remember that not all viruses are
harmful, but represent an integral component of the gut ecosystem, said Dr.
Alexandre Almeida, Postdoctoral Fellow at EMBLEuropean Bioinformatics Institute
(EMBL-EBI) and the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
For one thing, most of the viruses we found
have DNA as their genetic material, which is different from the pathogens most
people know, such as SARS-CoV-2 or Zika, which are RNA viruses. Secondly, these
samples came mainly from healthy individuals who share any specific
diseases. fascinating to see how many unknown species live in our gut,
and to try and unravel the link between them and human health.
significant step forward is the new Gut Phage
Database (GPD), created by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the
EMBL-EBI. The database is a collection of about 142,000 non-redundant viral
genomes obtained by analyzing 28,060 human gut metagenomes from across the
world.
The GPD will be an invaluable resource for
those studying bacteriophages and the role they play in regulating the health
of both our gut bacteria and ourselves, according to the institutions.
Bacteriophage research is
currently experiencing a renaissance. This high-quality, large-scale catalog of
human gut viruses comes at the right time to serve as a blueprint to guide
ecological and evolutionary analysis in future virome studies, said Dr. Trevor
Lawley, senior author of the study from the Wellcome Sanger Institute
Deerland: The applications for various health areas abound
Deerland
Probiotics and Enzymes supplies a bacteriophage ingredient to the dietary
supplements industry. The company PreforPro ingredient is a combination
of LH01-Myoviridae, LL5-Siphoviridae, T4D-Myoviridae, and LL12-Myoviridae
phages.
The
company has a composition patent to cover the ingredient, titled Prebiotic
compositions comprising one or more types of bacteriophage, and published
science supports the efficacy of the ingredient (Grubb et al. Nutrients, 2020,
\u200b12\u200b(8): 2474, doi: 10.3390/nu12082474\u200b).
Dr.
John Deaton, VP of Science & Technology, Deerland Probiotics, and
Enzymes, told NutraIngredients-USA. This work shows the important role of
bacteriophages in shaping and balancing the microbiome. The abundance of
diverse bacteria that make up our bodies is well-known and bacteriophages are
even more prevalent in the body. And certain bacteriophages can help enhance
the growth of good bacteria over unwanted bacteria.
So
many consumers do their research, and the more published clinical data that
available on bacteriophages and their role in our health, the more confidence
they will have in this ingredient. Consumers know there a link between the
condition of the gut and their overall health, and this recently published
research makes yet another connection to the intricacies of the microbiome.
do expect research on bacteriophages to
accelerate. Bacteriophages are one of the most common things your body
interacts with regularly through contact, consumption, etc .they arent a
foreign substance. Not only that, but certain phages are very useful to the
body in keeping unwanted bacteria in check. like the adage, the enemy of my
enemy is my friend. Bacteriophages are part of the natural process our body
uses to keep our microbes balanced. And with so many species, the applications
for various health areas abound.
Prebiotics
Deerland positions PreforPro as a novel
prebiotic that supports the growth of healthy bacteria throughout the digestive
tract through a mechanism that is not fiber, carbohydrate, or starch.
A
prebiotic is defined as a substrate that is selectively utilized by host
microorganisms conferring a health benefit (ISAPP 2017). The ingredients are
typically fiber or starch-based components that the good bacteria in the gut.
Phage Database
Gut phage database
Details
of the new research are published in Cell. One of the most notable findings was
that among the tens of thousands of viruses discovered, a new highly prevalent
group of viruses believed to have a common ancestor (called a clade) was
identified, which the authors refer to as the Gubaphage.
The
Gubaphage clade is composed of 2 genera, said the researchers, can infect
bacteria from the Bacteroidaceae and Porphyromonadaceae families. Gubaphage was
found to be the second most prevalent virus clade in the human gut, after the
crAssphage, which was discovered in 2014.
The
combined prevalence of the 2 Gubaphage genera reached a sample proportion in
North America, Oceania, and Asia, whereas in Europe it was found to be
infecting bacteria in of the samples, noted the researchers.
Having
a comprehensive database of high-quality phage genomes paves the way for a
multitude of analyses of the human gut virome at a greatly improved resolution,
enabling the association of specific viral clades with distinct microbiome
phenotypes.
Importantly,
GPD provides a blueprint to guide functional and phenotypic experiments of the
human gut phageome, concluded the researchers.
Source:
Cell, Volume 184, Issue 4, Pages 1098-1109.E9, doi:
10.1016/j.cell.2021.01.029\u200b \u201cMassive expansion of human gut
bacteriophage diversity\u201d\u200bAuthors: L.F. Camarillo-Guerrero et
al.\n",