The genes of the ocean microbiome are similar to those of human gut microbiota | AGÊNCIA FAPESP

By analyzing the 7.2 Tb of metagenomic data from these 243 bacterial samples, Sarmento and fellow researchers in the consortium generated an ocean microbial reference gene catalogue with more than 40 million genes. Based on the catalogue, which is publicly available on the internet for use by the scientific community free of charge, the researchers identified a core set of gene families that are the most common in marine microorganisms.

A comparison with the genes sequenced by the Human Microbiome Project and MetaHIT shows that over 73% of the functional genes in marine microorganisms are shared with the human gut microbiome, despite the physicochemical differences between these two ecosystems. “Genetic sequencing of the plankton samples collected during the expedition could result in the identification of tens of thousands of new species of bacteria, single-cell organisms and marine viruses,” Sarmento said.

National Science Foundation (NSF) News - The 'intraterrestrials': New viruses discovered in ocean depths - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

Strange creatures live in the deep sea, but few are odder than the viruses that inhabit deep ocean methane seeps and prey on single-celled microorganisms called archaea.
The least understood of life's three primary domains, archaea thrive in the most extreme environments on the planet: near hot ocean rift vents, in acid mine drainage, in the saltiest of evaporation ponds and in petroleum deposits deep underground.
Virus in the deep blue sea
While searching the ocean's depths for evidence of viruses, scientists have found a remarkable new one, a virus that seemingly infects archaea that live beneath the ocean floor.
The researchers were surprised to discover that the virus selectively targets one of its own genes for mutation, and that this capacity is also shared by archaea themselves.
The findings appear today in a paper in the journal Nature Communications.

Identification of Viral Pathogen Diversity in Sewage Sludge by Metagenome Analysis.

The large diversity of viruses that exist in human populations are potentially excreted into sewage collection systems and concentrated in sewage sludge. In the US, the primary fate of processed sewage sludge (class B biosolids) is application to agricultural land as a soil amendment. To characterize and understand infectious risks associated with land application, and to describe the diversity of viruses in human populations, shotgun viral metagenomics was applied to 10 sewage sludge samples from 5 wastewater treatment plants throughout the continental U.S, each serving between 100,000 and 1,000,000 people. Nearly 330 million DNA sequences were produced and assembled, and annotation resulted in identifying 43 (26 DNA, 17 RNA) different types of human viruses in sewage sludge. Novel insights include the high abundance of newly emerging viruses (e.g. Coronavirus HKU1, Klassevirus, and Cosavirus) the strong representation of respiratory viruses, and the relatively minor abundance and occurrence of Enteroviruses. Viral metagenome sequence annotations were reproducible and independent PCR-based identification of selected viruses suggests that viral metagenomes were a conservative estimate of the true viral occurrence and diversity. These results represent the most complete description of human virus diversity in any wastewater sample to date, provide engineers and environmental scientists with critical information on important viral agents and routes of infection from exposure to wastewater and sewage sludge, and represent a significant leap forward in understanding the pathogen content of class B biosolids.