A common bacterial pathogen called Pseudomonas aeruginosa produces a virus that substantially increases the pathogen’s ability to infect us, according to a study by investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
P. aeruginosa weaponizes its resident virus to exploit the immune system’s distinct responses to bacterial versus viral infections.
This marks the first time a bacteria-infecting virus, otherwise known as a bacteriophage or just phage, has been observed inducing the immune system to mount an antiviral response and, in doing so, causing it to ignore the bacterial infection. When the scientists generated a vaccine directed at the virus, they showed that it dramatically lowered the bacteria’s ability to infect wounds in mice.
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