Purification and Up-Concentration of Bacteriophages and Viruses from Fecal Samples

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingBook chapterResearchpeer-review

The viral fraction of human and experimental animal fecal matter is increasingly attracting research interest due to its newfound influence on the gut microbiome and host health. During the past decade, high-throughput sequencing techniques have seen massive improvements, and in recent years, bioinformatics pipelines for virome analysis have also vastly improved with respect to both user-friendliness and output quality. Yet, the shape and quality of such data are highly dependent on how the viruses are isolated and their genomes extracted and processed to build sequencing libraries. Here we describe a simple protocol for virus isolation from fecal samples suitable for further propagation/characterization or sequencing efforts. It is based on two filtration steps: one for removing large particles such as bacteria and one for removing free DNA and up-concentrating phages and other viruses in the solution. The method is highly scalable, adaptable to a long range of sample types including low-input samples, and has a quantifiable output suitable for both plaquing and sequencing.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationBacteriophages : Methods and Protocols
Number of pages6
PublisherHumana Press
Publication date2024
Pages105-110
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024
SeriesMethods in Molecular Biology
Volume2738
ISSN1064-3745

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.

    Research areas

  • Bacteriophages, Fecal virome, Ultrafiltration, Virus purification, Viruses, VLP extraction

ID: 389591202