The Human Virome

Pilar Domingo-Calap, Juan Vicente Bou, Domingo-Calap, Pilar, Bou, Juan Vicente

Virome studies are of special interest nowadays. Understanding viral communities in different body compartments will help guide future personalized treatments and to discern between homeostasis and disease. High-throughput sequencing technologies allow us to detect all the nucleic acids present in a sample, including viral ones, by random sequencing. One of the major challenges in virome studies is the correct isolation of the viral nucleic acids from a specific sample. This can be done during the extraction steps (e.g., enrichment of viral capsids), or during the bioinformatic analysis (e.g., removing all human and bacterial sequences). Furthermore, it is an important remark that the treatment of the sample will strongly influence the results. Samples will be treated differently if the ultimate goal is the study of all replicating and encapsidated viruses, including both RNA and DNA ones, if we are only focused on DNA ones, or if we want to analyze all the possible viral nucleic acids in the specific sample, even if the genome is degraded. Here, we present a technique that allows for isolation of viral nucleic acids from plasma samples.