Stress-related psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety are among the highest lifetime prevalences worldwide and represent a significant societal burden 1, 2, 3 . Therefore, understanding the biological consequences of chronic stress is an important path in developing new strategies for stress-related disorders. Increasing evidence suggests that brain-gut interactions can govern the response to stress 4. Simultaneously, it has been shown that the gut microbiota—the community of microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, archaea, protozoa, and fungi, that live in the gut—influences via the microbiota-gut-brain axis 2 the development and function of the immune and nervous systems
Bacteria account for the vast majority and metabolic capacity of cellular microorganisms in the gut and have been shown to modulate stress responses 6. Although less explored, gut viruses, which predominantly consist of bacteriophages (or phages), infect bacteria and can replicate and lyse them or integrate into their host genome and replicate alongside them 7, 8. These phages can modulate the structure and function of the microbiota and contribute to the diversity, stability, and resilience of the microbiota at the community level 9
Nathaniel L. Ritz, Lorraine A. Draper, Thomaz FS Bastiaanssen, Christopher JR Turkington, Veronica L. Peterson, Marcel van de Wouw, Klara Vlckova, Christine Fülling, Katherine E. Guzzetta, Aurelijus Burokas, Hugh Harris, Marion Dalmasso, Fiona Crispie, Paul D. Cotter, Andrey N. Shkoporov, Gerard M. Moloney, Timothy G. Dinan, Colin Hill & John F. Cryan
