The Human Virome Project is coming y’all!

Notices of Intent to Publish went out yesterday to announce 4 upcoming NIH funding opportunities:

1. Consortium Organization and Data Collaborating Center
2. Longitudinal characterization of the virome in cohorts
3. Tools for interrogation and annotation of the virome
4. Functional interactions between viruses, human, and microbial hosts

https://commonfund.nih.gov/humanvirome/fundingopportunities

#NIH #funding #virome

My old lab from Cork, Ireland in Nature this week with "Structural atlas of a human gut crassvirus". Really great team, always so supportive, friendly and hard working, really well earned! Plus such nice pictures. (Damn maybe I should have stayed 🤣 )

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06019-2

#microbiome #research #virome #microbiology #viruses #sciart

@kevinrns @ArrowbearMoore I get it. It will be interesting to see how it goes. I love the evolution of language, “new” words and archaic words and often include the hashtag #WordHoarder when I find them. Want to add this to my horde. #virome

Thousands of unknown #viruses discovered in baby #poo – why this is not necessarily a bad thing.

#microbiome #bacteriophages #virome

https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-unknown-viruses-discovered-in-baby-poo-why-this-is-not-necessarily-a-bad-thing-204419

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.26.538077v1 Benchmarking of virus detection methods from WGS data. PPR-Meta seems best in environmental samples, while VirSorter2 is best in the gut. Which is good, because VirSorter2 is what we're using at the moment in the @BorkLab 😅

#bioRxiv #microbiome #virome

Researchers uncover the tissue-#resident eukaryotic #DNA #virome in #humans.

#lysogeny

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-uncover-tissue-resident-eukaryotic-dna-virome.html

Researchers uncover the tissue-#resident eukaryotic #DNA #virome in #humans.

#lysogeny

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-uncover-tissue-resident-eukaryotic-dna-virome.html

8/6
🦠 #RNA Viruses in Ticks that Feed on Farm Animals 🐮

In addition to the above studies ☝️, another one looked at the #virome of ticks that feed on livestock in Uganda.

• Analyzed 2,754 ticks from 31 farms.
• Used semi-agnostic sequencing to detect all known #virus families.
• Found 22 viruses from 9 families, of which 5 were novel!
• Orthonairoviruses were notable, including Crimean-Congo Fever virus & a novel one.

https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.03.10.532017
#virology @virology #epidemiology #InfectiousDisease

@PeerCommunityIn Now published in Peer Community Journal, #Infections section: African #armyants at the forefront of #virome surveillance in a remote #tropicalforest https://doi.org/10.24072/pcjournal.249

7/6
🦠 RNA Viruses in Ticks — Ticks that Feed on Bats! 🦇

In addition to the above studies ☝️, a new study looked at the #RNA #virome of ticks— specifically ticks that feed on bats in Sweden.

• Found 16 viruses from 11 #virus families, of which 15 were novel!
• Authors suggest that such surveillance might help identify potential zoonoses.

"Substantial viral and bacterial diversity at the bat–tick interface"
https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000942
#virology @virology #epidemiology #InfectiousDisease @eddieholmes

A new #preprint #OpenScience #PeerReview by #PCI_Infections: Fritz M, et al (2023) African #armyants at the forefront of #virome surveillance in a remote #tropicalforest. #bioRxiv, #Infections https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.13.520061

RT @HostMicrobeLit
Four principles to establish a universal virus taxonomy
@PLOSBiology

#microbiology #virome #viruses

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001922

A global #virome of #methanogenic #archaea highlights novel diversity and adaptations to the #gut environment | Research Square

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-2539466/v1

🐝 It is worth noting that this study ☝️ specifically focused on those bees showing signs of disease.

So, did they find a 'smoking gun' to explain the collapse of colonies worldwide?

Well, besides the 20 novel bee viruses discovered, they also found "14 known pathogenic honeybee viruses" and "multiple viruses in almost 70% of the honeybee colonies."

The authors suggest more research, especially with regards to the newly discovered apis picorna-like virus 4 (APLV4)...

#virus #virology #virome

🐝 Bees have really had a hard couple of years.

Suggested factors leading to collapse of bee colonies worldwide include pesticides, bacteria, & parasitic mites.

But the picture would not be complete unless we looked into the possible role of viral infections, too.

And so, welcome to the bee #virome :

"Nationwide genomic surveillance reveals the prevalence and evolution of honeybee viruses in China"
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-022-01446-1

(shamelessly scooping @eddieholmes here 🤭)
#virus #virology @virology

1/6
😲 Two recent studies from China look at the truly wide diversity of RNA viruses found in ticks.

"Extensive diversity of RNA viruses in ticks revealed by meta #genomics in northeastern China"
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0011017

"Metavirome of 31 tick species provides a compendium of 1,801 RNA virus genomes"
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-022-01275-w

A lot of insights in these two studies, so I'll just point out a few things that I personally found interesting.

#virology @virology #RNA #virus #virome #InfectiousDisease

1/4
There are some fascinating insights in the new preprint by @ewyler on #RNA wastewater sampling using two kinds of enrichment.

(QIAseq xHYB Adventitious Agent Panel and ElementZero Biolabs MagIC beads)

#virus #virology @virology #virome #InfectiousDisease https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.16.520800v1

Great PhD thesis from Sonia Underwood (nee Isaacs):

"Our data strengthen the rationale for development of vaccines and antivirals that target diabetogenic enteroviruses, for prevention of Islet Autoimmunity / Type 1 Diabetes."

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4308770
#type1diabetes #t1d #enterovirus
#vaccine #antiviral
#virus #virology #virome

New preprint on the gut #virome

"To expand the viral genome reference and provide a more comprehensive view of the gut virome, we built a catalogue of gut viruses by processing over 11,000 fecal bulk or VLP-based viral metagenomes of Chinese origin [...] including 67,096 nonredundant viruses. [...] 48.3% [...] could be assigned into one or more prokaryotic hosts. [...] 70.2% [...] are not found in other catalogues."
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.27.522048v1
#virology #virus #genomics

The #RNA #virosphere: how big and diverse is it?

#virome #phage #phages

https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1462-2920.16312#.Y6v_ht9I5_4.twitter