A catalog of tens of thousands of viruses from human metagenomes reveals hidden associations with chronic diseases

Despite remarkable strides in microbiome research, the viral compo-nent of the microbiome has generally presented a more challenging target than the bacteriome. This gap persists, even though many thousands of shotgun sequencing runs from human metagenomic samples exist in public databases, and all of them encompass large amounts of viral sequence data. The lack of a comprehensive database for human-associated viruses has historically stymied ef-forts to interrogate the impact of the virome on human health. This study probes thousands of datasets to uncover sequences from over 45,000 unique virus taxa, with historically high per-genome com-pleteness. Large publicly available case-control studies are reana-lyzed, and over 2,200 strong virus-disease associations are found.

Automated summary

Despite the challenges, this study reveals over 45,000 unique virus taxa sequences from thousands of datasets, with historically high per-genome completeness. By reanalyzing large publicly available case-control studies, over 2,200 strong virus-disease associations are found.