Humans possess more extensive virome than previously thought

Your body is a wonderland… for viruses, found a new study published in BMC Biology.

This research was a peek into The Human Microbiome Project under the National Institutes of Health that aims, as described on their website, “to develop tools and datasets for the research community for studying the role of these microbes in human health and disease.” Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis analyzed the DNA of 102 participants ages 18 to 42 from five major “body habitats”: nose, skin, mouth, vagina, and stool. And, on average, each participant had 5.5. viruses.

That’s not all. At least one virus was present in 92 percent of the participants’ DNA, and some participants had up to 15 viruses. These included herpes viruses, which weren’t all found to have been transmitted sexually; papilomaviruses (mostly found in the vagina); adenoviruses (common cold and pneumonia); and otherwise infection-causing virsues, like anelloviruses, parovirues; and circoviruses. To arrive at these results, researchers used a high-throughput DNA sequencing analysis no study has ever used before.

Read full original article: Number Of Viruses Found In Healthy People Impresses Scientists: We Are The 92%?

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