Abstract
Bacteriophages, or just phages, are tiny viruses that infect bacteria. Some phages help us by killing harmful bacteria and keeping our gut healthy. Although phages have existed for millions of years, we don’t know much about the ones from ancient times. To find out, we analyzed super old human poop samples. Using a new technique called de novo assembly, we pieced together the DNA of ancient viruses from these samples.
We discovered nearly 300 types of bacteriophages that we had never seen before. But there was also one 1,300-year-old phage that was almost exactly the same as a modern day species. This was extremely surprising! Our research provides a useful method to rebuild ancient phage DNA sequences and learn more about the history of viruses.