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Transmission and persistence of crAssphage, a ubiquitous human-associated bacteriophage

View ORCID ProfileFiona B Tamburini, Gavin J Sherlock, View ORCID ProfileAmi S Bhatt
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/460113
Fiona B Tamburini
Stanford University
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Gavin J Sherlock
Stanford University
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Ami S Bhatt
Stanford University
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  • For correspondence: asbhatt@stanford.edu
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Abstract

The recently discovered crAssphage is by far the most abundant and ubiquitous known human gut bacteriophage. It appears to be highly specific to the human gastrointestinal tract; however, the patterns of transmission and persistence of this bacteriophage are unknown. Here, we identify modes of transmission and describe long-term persistence of crAssphage in several human populations. We find that most humans harbor a single, dominant strain of crAssphage in their microbiome. This is in contrast to the bacterial microbiota, where individuals can harbor a variety of closely- or distantly-related strains of the same bacterial species. We show that crAssphage can be vertically transmitted from mother to infant, acquired through fecal microbiota transplantation, and transmitted in immunocompromised hosts in a hospital setting. We also observe that once a crAssphage strain is acquired, it persists stably within an individual over a timescale of months. These results enhance our understanding of the dynamics of crAssphage, which has emerged as one of the most successful human-associated microbes, and provide a foundation for future studies of the role of this phage in the biology of the human microbiome.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted November 02, 2018.
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Transmission and persistence of crAssphage, a ubiquitous human-associated bacteriophage
Fiona B Tamburini, Gavin J Sherlock, Ami S Bhatt
bioRxiv 460113; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/460113
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Transmission and persistence of crAssphage, a ubiquitous human-associated bacteriophage
Fiona B Tamburini, Gavin J Sherlock, Ami S Bhatt
bioRxiv 460113; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/460113

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