Introduction to viromics

Overview

Teaching: 60 min
Exercises: 60 min

Objectives

• Summarize metagenomics and viromics

• Understand what are bacteriophages and how they fit into microbial communities

• Compare and contrast microbial and viral diversity

Video on viral metagenomics

Below is a lecture video introducing the concepts of metagenomics, microbial dark matter, and viromics. The case study covered in the video is about crAssphage, a type of bacteriophage that was first found using bioinformatics, by reanalyzing viromics data from the human gut by using the cross-assembly approach. The prevalence and implications of crAssphage are also discussed.

Exercise

Watch the lecture below and write down at least 3 questions and/or discussion points about it.

• Click on the image to see lecture video “Viral metagenomics: predicting phage-microbe interactions in the gut” by Prof Bas E. Dutilh (34 minutes):

Additional reading: Virus Bioinformatics (Pappas et al. 2021)

Exercise - mindmap

Create a mindmap summarizing the following points from the video. A mindmap is a brainstorming graphic. You can get creative using PowerPoint or draw it on paper, take a picture, and upload it into your Lab Notebook.

1. What is metagenomics?
2. What is viromics?
3. What are bacteriophages and how prevalent and abundant are they?
4. What are the roles of phages in microbial communities?
   • more general, how do they influence the ecology and the environment
5. Explain at least three ways that phages can have an impact on bacteria.
   • More specifically, how do they influence their host (lytic/ temperate, HGT etc)
6. Name at least three differences between the evolution of viral and cellular organisms?

Key Points

• Viromics is the study of viruses, and in our case bacteriophages, using next-generation sequencing technologies

• Bacteriophages are diverse and ubiquitous across all biomes

• Bacteriophages have large implications on their environment including the human gut