The gut of healthy human newborns is normally free of viruses at birth but is rapidly colonized, leading in some cases to gastrointestinal diseases. Here we show that the establishment of the viral community in newborns occurs in distinct stages. Fluorescence staining of virus-like particles purified from meconium or early infant stool samples shows few or no particles, but by one month of age, particle numbers increase to 10^9 per gram, and these numbers appear to persist throughout life. <\/p>\n
We investigated the origin of these viral populations using metagenomic sequencing of virus-enriched preparations and whole microbial communities by shotgun sequencing, followed by targeted microbiological analyses. The results suggest that early after birth, pioneer bacteria colonize the infant gut and that prophages induced from these bacteria form the predominant population of virus-like particles for one month. <\/p>\n
After four months of life, identifiable viruses that replicate in human cells appear more frequently. Multiple human viruses were more common in stool samples from infants fed exclusively with breast milk than in infants partially or fully formula-fed, and in parallel, breast milk has been reported to protect against viral infections. Bacteriophage populations also differed depending on whether the infant was breastfed or not. We show that colonization of the infant gut occurs in stages, initially mainly through temperate bacteriophages induced from pioneer bacteria, and later through viruses \/ bacteriophages that replicate in human cells; this second phase is modulated by breastfeeding. <\/p>\n
Translation of source:
\nLiang, G., Zhao, C., Zhang, H. et al. The stepwise assembly of the neonatal virome is modulated by breastfeeding. Nature 581, 470\u2013474 (2020). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41586-020-2192-1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The gut of healthy human newborns is normally free of viruses at birth but is rapidly colonized, leading in some cases to gastrointestinal diseases. Here we show that the establishment of the viral community in newborns occurs in distinct stages. Fluorescence staining of virus-like particles purified from meconium or early infant stool samples shows few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.phage.help\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/stillen.jpg?fit=470%2C701&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pazElU-2eM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phage.help\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}