We are proud to share new research by our colleague, Joachim Johansen, PhD and his former colleagues at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, published in Nature Microbiology last week.
Using a deep-learning based framework to pull out viral information from metagenomes, they analyzed bacteria and phages from 195 centenarians from Japan and Sardinia. The study reveals that centenarians have a diverse virome, which includes previously undescribed viral genera, compared to younger (>18 yr) and older (>60 yr) individuals. What’s more, phages characteristic of the centenarian virome encoded genes that support bacterial sulphate metabolism, a process that may help to maintain gut barrier integrity and increase resistance to pathogens.
These results highlight the incredibly complex interplay between viruses, bacteria and their human hosts, in addition to shedding light on the mechanisms by which a diverse gut ecosystem can promote health throughout life.
We are excited to announce that we will soon be launching the next generation of our virome and phage profiling pipeline.
Read the publication, or contact us for more information.