Open AccessThe virota and its transkingdom interactions in the healthy infant gut
Author(s) -
Leen Beller,
Ward Deboutte,
Sara Vieira-Silva,
Gwen Falony,
Raúl Y. Tito,
Leen Rymenans,
Claude Kwe Yinda,
Bert Vanmechelen,
Lore Van Espen,
Daan Jansen,
Chenyan Shi,
Mark Zeller,
Piet Maes,
Karoline Faust,
Marc Van Ranst,
Jeroen Raes,
Jelle Matthijnssens
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2114619119
Subject(s) - biology , colonization , gut flora , host (biology) , immune system , microbiology and biotechnology , zoology , immunology , ecology
Significance Microbes colonizing the infant gut during the first year(s) of life play an important role in immune system development. We show that after birth the (nearly) sterile gut is rapidly colonized by bacteria and their viruses (phages), which often show a strong cooccurrence. Most viruses infecting the infant do not cause clinical signs and their numbers strongly increase after day-care entrance. The infant diet is clearly reflected by identification of plant-infecting viruses, whereas fungi and parasites are not part of a stable gut microbiota. These temporal high-resolution baseline data about the gut colonization process will be valuable for further investigations of pathogenic viruses, dynamics between phages and their bacterial host, as well as studies investigating infants with a disturbed microbiota.