The intestinal virome in irritable bowel syndrome

Objective: Viruses shape the human microbiome and can thus contribute to microbiome-related disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). High quality virome data has not been reported for subtypes of IBS. Design: We selected two stool samples from a larger longitudinal IBS study and processed these for viral preparations followed by sequence amplification and bioinformatic processing to capture the largest possible virome diversity. We mined the high quality filtered virome data for possible IBS subtype-specific eukaryotic viruses and bacteriophages. Viral sequence abundance was integrated with previously published multi-omic data consisting of diet, microbiome composition, microbiome functions, and metabolomics. Results: There are a multitude of eukaryotic viruses and bacteriophages associated with IBS in this cohort which could contribute to IBS symptoms in subsets of individuals. Integration with paired multi omics datasets provides hypotheses on dietary and bacterial origins of viruses, possible roles of bacteriophages in shaping the levels of functional output of the microbiome. Conclusions: Eukaryotic or bacterial viruses may be involved in functional shifts observed in the microbiome of some IBS patients.