An atlas of human viruses provides new insights into diversity and tissue tropism of human viruses

Abstract

Viruses continue to threaten human health. Yet, the complete viral species carried by humans and their infection characteristics have not been fully revealed. This study curated an atlas of human viruses from public databases and literatures, and built the Human Virus Database (HVD) available at http://computationalbiology.cn/humanVirusBase/#/. The HVD contains 1,131 virus species of 54 viral families which were more than twice the number of the human-infecting virus species reported in previous studies. These viruses were identified in human samples including 68 human tissues, the excreta and body fluid. The viral diversity in humans was age-dependent with a peak in the infant and a valley in the teenager. The tissue range of viruses was found to be associated with several factors including the viral group (DNA, RNA or reverse-transcribing viruses), enveloped or not, viral genome length and GC content, viral receptors and the virus-interacting proteins. Finally, the tissue range of DNA viruses was predicted using a random-forest algorithm with a medium performance. Overall, the study not only provides a valuable resource for further studies of human viruses, but also deepens our understanding towards the diversity and tissue tropism of human viruses.