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Updated: Jul 22, 2025
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Phage Phenomics: Physiological Approaches to Characterize Novel Viral Proteins
Published on: June 11, 2015
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The human gut phageome: composition, development, and alterations in disease
1Key Lab of Food Quality and Safety of Jiangsu Province-State Key Laboratory Breeding Base, Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing, China.
Frontiers in Microbiology
|July 21, 2023
Summary
The human gut phageome, including viruses that infect bacteria, plays a vital role in health. Understanding these phages is crucial for human health and disease research.
Area of Science:
- Microbiology
- Virology
- Human Health
Background:
- The human gut harbors diverse microorganisms, including bacteria and viruses (phages).
- Bacterial roles in health are known, but gut phageome (bacterial viruses) functions are less understood.
- Advanced sequencing reveals phageome diversity but leaves much data uncharacterized.
Purpose of the Study:
- To provide an overview of the human gut phageome's composition, structure, and development.
- To explore factors influencing the phageome, such as diet and geography.
- To summarize the phageome's connection to human diseases.
Main Methods:
- Review of current research on the human gut phageome.
- Analysis of factors affecting phageome composition.
- Summary of phageome-disease associations.
Main Results:
- The human gut phageome is complex and influenced by various factors.
- A significant portion of phageome sequencing data remains uncharacterized.
- Phages are implicated in microbial ecology, evolution, and human health.
Conclusions:
- Further research is needed to characterize the phageome and understand phage-bacteria interactions.
- Establishing comprehensive phage databases is essential for functional studies.
- The gut phageome is linked to various diseases, including IBD, obesity, and diabetes.
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