Unveiling the viral dimension: The paediatric gut virome as a key modulator of gastrointestinal metabolic, and neurodevelopmental health

Table 8 Technical bottlenecks in paediatric viromics

Step	Challenge	Impact on pediatric research
Sample collection	Low volume (especially from neonates)	Limits the ability to perform multiple enrichment steps
Viral enrichment	Distinguishing “free” viruses from prophages	Makes it hard to tell if a virus is active or just dormant in a bacterium
Sequencing	High cost of deep metagenomics	Reduces the sample size of studies, often leading to “underpowered” results
Bioinformatics	Lack of universal markers	Prevents the easy, high-throughput identification possible with 16S sequencing