Megaphages target Gut Bacteria

A team of scientists from Berkeley have discovered the largest phages ever found in the human gut. These phages periodically prey on the bacteria of the gut, but are found only in humans that eat a non-Western, high-fiber, and low fat diet, such as the diet of traditional hunter-gatherer societies.

Though more virus than bacteria, macrophages have genomes that are ten times the size of normal phages and are much larger than bacteria. Their makeup makes it hard for biologists to classify them as either living or nonliving.

Specifically, scientists were interested in a particular bacteria, Prevotella, that contains snippets of megaphage DNA. This suggests that megaphage particularly target Prevotella, a bacteria that is not commonly seen in the gut microbiota of westerners. This macrophage could help  develop phage-based treatments caused by Prevotella.

Today, what is contained in the large genome of megaphages still remains a mystery. Scientists speculate that the large genomes encode proteins that prevent the bacterial host from interfering with phage replication. There is a significant amount of discovery waiting to happen in this field.

The full story can be found at  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190128161432.htm

-Angela Wang