Résumé
Human, animal and plant viral pathologies have greatly benefited from recent metagenomics development. Viral metagenomics is a culture-independent approach used to investigate the complete viral genetic populations of a sample. The last decade, metagenomics concepts and techniques that were first used by ecologists, progressively spread into the scientific field of viral pathology. The sample, which has been a fraction of ecosystems for ecologists, became for pathologists organisms that host millions of microbes and viruses. This new approach, providing without a priori high-resolution qualitative and quantitative data on the viral diversity, is now revolutionizing the way pathologists decipher viral diseases. This review describes the very last improvements of the high throughput next generation sequencing methods and discusses the applications of viral metagenomics in viral pathology, including discovery of novel viruses, viral surveillance and diagnostic, large-scale molecular epidemiology, and viral evolution. (Texte intégral)