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The virota and its transkingdom interactions in the healthy infant gut

Journal Contribution - Journal Article

SignificanceMicrobes 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.
Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
ISSN: 0027-8424
Issue: 13
Volume: 119
Publication year:2022
Accessibility:Open