What question did this study set out to answer?

The study aims to catalog the viral diversity of the human gut virome in Kenya and investigate its age-dependent structure.

July 5, 2026Scientific ReportsOpen Access

The Kenyan Human Gut Virome Catalogue reveals extensive viral diversity and age-dependent community structure

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Randomized trial shows extensive viral diversity in gut viromes, indicating key microbial differences by age.

The study aims to catalog the viral diversity of the human gut virome in Kenya and investigate its age-dependent structure.
Developed the Kenyan Human Gut Virome Catalogue (KHGVC) using 626 fecal metagenomes from infants and adults in three Kenyan counties.
Applied a standardized viromics pipeline to reconstruct 116,968 viral operational taxonomic units (vOTUs).
Performed functional annotation of viral proteins and cross-catalogue comparisons with existing databases.
Discovered that 65.6% of KHGVC's vOTUs larger than 10 kb lacked matches in five major human gut virome databases.
Observed age-dependent virome structuring: infant viromes were less diverse, enriched in Bifidobacterium-infecting phages, while adult viromes had greater diversity with Prevotella-associated phages.
Found that temperate bacteriophages make up ~70% of the documented vOTUs, highlighting their role in gut ecosystem stability.

Nthuku et al. (2026) studied this question.

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