New gut-dwelling virus is surprisingly common
Health effects unknown for crAssphage found in up to three-quarters of people
A newly discovered virus may already be living in your intestines. As many as three-quarters of people carry this virus, yet it has gone unnoticed until now.
“We haven’t been able to capture the little bugger on a plate and take a picture of it,” says computational biologist Robert Edwards of San Diego State University, who led the study. Instead, the researchers found the new virus by looking at DNA from people’s feces.
The virus went unrecognized for so long because many of its genes don’t resemble those of other known viruses, researchers report July 24 in Nature Communications.