%0 Journal Article
%T Longitudinal comparison of the developing gut virome in infants and their mothers.
%A Walters WA
%A Granados AC
%A Ley C
%A Federman S
%A Stryke D
%A Santos Y
%A Haggerty T
%A Sotomayor-Gonzalez A
%A Servellita V
%A Ley RE
%A Parsonnet J
%A Chiu CY
%J Cell Host Microbe
%V 31
%N 2
%D 02 2023 8
%M 36758519
%F 31.316
%R 10.1016/j.chom.2023.01.003
%X The human gut virome and its early life development are poorly understood. Prior studies have captured single-point assessments with the evolution of the infant virome remaining largely unexplored. We performed viral metagenomic sequencing on stool samples collected longitudinally from a cohort of 53 infants from age 2 weeks to 3 years (80.7 billion reads), and from their mothers (9.8 billion reads) to examine and compare viromes. The asymptomatic infant virome consisted of bacteriophages, nonhuman dietary/environmental viruses, and human-host viruses, predominantly picornaviruses. In contrast, human-host viruses were largely absent from the maternal virome. Previously undescribed, sequence-divergent vertebrate viruses were detected in the maternal but not infant virome. As infants aged, the phage component evolved to resemble the maternal virome, but by age 3, the human-host component remained dissimilar from the maternal virome. Thus, early life virome development is determined predominantly by dietary, infectious, and environmental factors rather than direct maternal acquisition.