Lung Transplant Recipient Lung and Blood Viral Microbiome

Solid organ transplantation disrupts host–virus interactions, which can result in virus transfer from donor to recipient, reactivation of latent viruses, and de novo infections. Colonization and infection are typically monitored using targeted clinical assays for specific viruses, leaving the behavior of full donor and recipient viral populations–the “virome”–understudied. We performed shotgun metagenomic sequencing of DNA interrogated the virome of bronchoalveolar lavage and serum in the peri-transplant period and during the first 6-16 months post-transplant in 13 lung donor-recipient pairs.