Gut Microbiome Protects Against Viral Infection

As a follow up to this week’s post about augmenting our immune system against rotavirus, we look at bacteria which can improve a mouse’s chances against rotaviral infection.  Researchers from Georgia State University found that mice with a higher population of segmented filamentous bacteria were protected against severe rotavirus infection (see prior article).  They wondered why some mice were very resistant to the infection.  With study, they determined a specific group of bacteria which protected the original mice and would protect other mice when implanted in the less resistant mice.

These bacteria appeared to trigger the finger like villi of the intestinal walls to grow faster, shedding the virally infected cells. While this article does not mention the connection, it is interesting that the same groups original article on IL 18 and IL 22 linked the effects of IL 22 as producing a similar effect.  I am interested to know if these bacteria were working through the stimulation of IL 22.

Prepping for 2020 and Beyond requires more than just pharmaceuticals.  It requires a knowledge of how our immune system interacts with our bacterial neighbors and discernment in how we modulate those neighbors for our benefit.  That is a major goal of the Immune Prepper course.

Original Article:

Zhenda Shi, Jun Zou, Zhan Zhang, Xu Zhao, Juan Noriega, Benyue Zhang, Chunyu Zhao, Harshad Ingle, Kyle Bittinger, Lisa M. Mattei, Andrea J. Pruijssers, Richard K. Plemper, Timothy J. Nice, Megan T. Baldridge, Terence S. Dermody, Benoit Chassaing, Andrew T. Gewirtz. Segmented Filamentous Bacteria Prevent and Cure Rotavirus Infection. Cell, 2019 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.09.028

Thanks to Science Daily:

Georgia State University. “Biomedical sciences researchers isolate gut bacteria that can prevent and cure rotavirus infection.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 10 October 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191010113233.htm>.