Identifying and analyzing bacteriophages in human fecal samples: what could we discover?
The human gut is a complex ecosystem, densely populated with microbes including enormous amounts of phages. Metagenomic studies indicate a great diversity of bacteriophages, and because of the variety of gut bacterial species, the human or animal gut is probably a perfect ecological niche for phages that can infect and propagate in their bacterial communities. In addition, some phages have the capacity to mobilize genes, as demonstrated by the enormous fraction of phage particles in feces that contain bacterial DNA. All these facts indicate that, through predation and horizontal gene transfer, bacteriophages play a key role in shaping the size, structure and function of intestinal microbiomes, although our understanding of their effects on gut bacterial populations is only just beginning.
['Muniesa|Maite|M|', 'Jofre|Juan|J|']
D001419:Bacteria D001435:Bacteriophages D005243:Feces D006801:Humans D007422:Intestines D064307:Microbiota
bacteriophages human feces microbiota