Development and standardization of methods for the study of the human virome using the generation sequencing (NGS) method

Project manager: prof. dr. hab. Monika Brzychczy-Włoch
Implementation period: 2022 - 2023

The introduction of next generation sequencing (NGS) into laboratories has revolutionized scientific research and the existing knowledge of understanding the human microbiome. In recent years, there have been many publications highlighting the important role of microbiota composition both in healthy individuals and in the course of various diseases. Unfortunately, most research papers focus exclusively on the study of quantitative and qualitative changes in bacteria, neglecting other groups of microorganisms that are also an important component of the microbiota and may be of considerable importance in the pathogenesis of many diseases. One of these groups is viruses, which constitute the so-called human viriom. The human viriom consists of eukaryotic viruses, which attack host cells, and bacterial viruses - bacteriophages, which attack species-specific bacteria of the microbiome. Both groups of viruses may or may not be pathogenic, and may threaten or benefit the host. Available literature data describing the human virioma is very limited. This is mainly due to the lack of regions within their genome that are universal to all viruses and the complexity of preparing libraries for NGS, while also posing a major challenge to standardizing methodologies. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop and standardize methods for metagenomic study of the human viriom for use in scientific research. The above problem seems particularly relevant in the era of the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The aim of the project will be to develop a protocol for the extraction of nucleic acids and the preparation of libraries for next-generation sequencing (NGS), as well as to adapt bioinformatics methods for the analysis of the human viriom. The preliminary research carried out within the framework of this project will lay the foundation for the submission of a project on the study of the human virome in selected diseases to a competition organized by the National Science Center.