The role of the gut virome in liver disease: development of bio-informatic approaches to identify, characterize and analyze the human gut virome. (in the framework of the MicrobLiver project)

There is emerging evidence for the role of gut bacteria and archaea (henceforth called bacterial microbiome) in several human diseases. But viruses in the human gut have only been studied to a very limited extent in this context. Viruses are the most abundant and genetically most diverse fraction of the human microbiome. The size of the human gut virome is not known, but one gram of human faeces can contain more than 100.000.000 viral particles. For studying the virome, we will use a novel protocol recently established at the Rega Institute that allows for a fast, reproducible and high throughput sample preparation applicable for large viral metagenomics studies. I will study the role of the gut microbiome in liver disease and develop bioinformatic approaches to identify, characterise and analyse the gut virome.