Detailed Viral Composition

The Intestinal Virome is the collection of all viruses present in your gut.

Far from being a sign of illness, the vast majority of these viruses are bacteriophages ("bacteria eaters") that do not infect human cells, but rather regulate bacterial populations.

This analysis assesses the diversity of these regulatory agents and detects dietary viral markers that serve as indicators of nutritional quality.

When we think of viruses, we usually think of the flu or infections. However, your gut is home to trillions of viruses that are essential for your health. These organisms form the so-called "Dark Matter" of the microbiome, due to their great unknown and complexity. The main components we analyze are:

• Bacteriophages (Phages): They are the natural "predators" of bacteria. They act as a quality control system, infecting and eliminating specific bacteria if they grow too much. A diverse virome suggests a dynamic and well-controlled bacterial ecosystem.
• Plant Viruses: The most famous is the Pepper Mild Mottle Virus (PMMoV). It is a virus that infects peppers and chilies. It does not affect humans, but finding it in your sample is an excellent sign: it shows that you eat real vegetables and not just processed ones.

Although they do not infect your cells, the virome has an indirect but profound impact on your physiology:

• Ecosystem Regulation (Predator-Prey Model): Phages prevent a single bacterial species from dominating the gut. If a bacterium grows unchecked, its specific phages multiply and reduce its population, maintaining biodiversity.
• Gene Transfer: Viruses can carry genes from one bacterium to another. This can be beneficial (transferring metabolic capabilities) or detrimental (transferring antibiotic resistance genes), so monitoring the "virome" is key to clinical safety.
• Trans-Kingdom Immunity: Recent research suggests that some phages can adhere to the gut's mucosal layer, forming a defensive barrier that protects human tissue against bacterial invasion.

The study of the virome represents the technical frontier of metagenomics. Unlike bacteria (which have the 16S gene) or fungi (ITS), viruses do not share a universal marker gene, making it impossible to detect them with conventional tests. Only deep Shotgun sequencing allows the recovery of their genetic sequences.

Our bioinformatics pipeline uses specialized viral databases to first filter out human and bacterial DNA. Subsequently, we identify viral sequences by homology with known families (Siphoviridae, Myoviridae, Podoviridae) and specific "cryptic" viruses with high human prevalence, such as crAssphage (present in 50% of the world population and a marker of human contamination) and PMMoV (dietary marker). The presence/absence and relative abundance of the mappable viral fraction are reported.