Enteric bacteria promote human and mouse norovirus infection of B cells

Abstract

Bacteria help norovius infect B cells Stomach ache, nausea, diarrhea—many people know the sort of gastrointestinal havoc norovirus can wreak. Despite this, norovirus biology remains unclear, because human norovirus cannot be grown in culture. Jones et al. now report that with the help of bacteria, human norovirus can infect cultured B cells (see the Perspective by Robinson and Pfeiffer). To infect B cells, human norovirus required the presence of gut bacteria that expressed proteins involved in determining blood type. Mouse norovirus also infected B cells, and the treatment of mice with antibiotics protected them from norovirus infection. Science , this issue p. 755 ; see also p. 700