A newly discovered virus is already in half the world’s population

People hear the word ‘virus’ and they automatically think illness, disease and pending doom, but the reality is some viruses don’t affect the human body in a negative way–or even at all. Such seems to be the case with a newly discovered virus that experts say is already in half of the world’s population.

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It’s being called “crAssphage,” and researchers from San Diego State University indicate it is a bacteria found in the human gut, surviving by infecting the bacteria that live there.  Though it is yet unclear exactly what crAssphage does within the body, the research team was able to determine the virus is of the bacteriophage type, likely targeting the common gut bacteria known as Bacteroidetes.

“[We] did some different kinds of comparisons, and it jumped right out at us as being something important because it was abundant,” Robert Edwards, a bioinformatics professor involved in the study told Live Science.

Edwards explained the reason the virus was likely hidden from the medical community for so long is because DNA comparisons are typically done only against already sequences already known to exist. It wasn’t until the team start comparing DNA samples from feces against one another that the new virus jumped out at them.

Though they know it exists, at this time the experts are unable to isolate the actual virus to replicate it in the laboratory or to capture it through imaging. They suspect it plays a role in controlling the levels of bacteria in the human gut?but for good or bad they are unable to tell.

“The fact that it’s there in so many people means that whatever it’s doing is not causing something rare. But there are enough common conditions that affect humans, that there may be a role there.  commented Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician who was not involved in the research. “There’s definitely a lot of avenues of research that the discovery of this [bacterio]phage will open up.”

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Follow-up investigations hope to identify how the new virus affects human health. It is possible it is a contributing factor in obesity, cancer, or other common human conditions. The experts note it is another finding that supports the importance of gut bacteria and microbes in overall health.