Walnut Creek, Calif.-based Joint Genome Institute's David Paez Espino, PhD, and his colleagues studied viruses' "global distribution, phylogenetic diversity, and host specificity," according to ResearchGate. Dr. Espino and his team examined more than five Tb of metagenomics sequence data from 3,042 samples.
Nature published the study.
Here are six observations:
1. Dr. Espino said no researchers were conducting large-scale multi-habitat studies of viral discovery before this study.
2. This study has amped up the viral sequences by 50 times, allowing the researchers to pinpoint 99 percent more viral diversity.
3. Dr. Espino noted their study will provide avenues for significant discovery and analysis in global viral distribution.
4. Dr. Espino and his team learned more about environmental viral taxonomic diversity, host-virus interactions and host range specificity.
5. The researchers identified the largest reported phage.
6. Dr. Espino concluded their findings may help in the biotechnological realm, such as using regulatory DNA parts for various microbial organisms to create genes and pathways which are expressible in various hosts.
