Science

Jordi Mayneris-Perxachs, Anna Castells-Nobau,
Marı ́a Arnoriaga-Rodr ́ıguez, Manuel Mart ́ınez-Garcı ́a, Rafael Maldonado,
Jose ́ -Manuel Ferna ́ ndez-Real

Growing evidence implicates the gut microbiome in cognition. Viruses, the most abundant life entities on the planet, are a commonly overlooked component of the gut virome, dominated by the Caudovirales and Micro- viridae bacteriophages. Here, we show in a discovery (n = 114) and a validation cohort (n = 942) that subjects with increased Caudovirales and Siphoviridae levels in the gut microbiome had better performance in exec- utive processes and verbal memory. Conversely, increased Microviridae levels were linked to a greater impairment in executive abilities. Microbiota transplantation from human donors with increased specific Cau- dovirales (>90% from the Siphoviridae family) levels led to increased scores in the novel object recognition test in mice and up-regulated memory-promoting immediate early genes in the prefrontal cortex. Supplementation of the Drosophila diet with the 936 group of lactococcal Siphoviridae bacteriophages resulted in increased memory scores and upregulation of memory-involved brain genes. Thus, bacteriophages warrant consideration as novel actors in the microbiome-brain axis.