Common gut virus infects bacteria—not human cells

AI Summary

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and collaborators report that picobirnavirus infects gut bacteria rather than human cells. The finding revises earlier assumptions about the virus and its possible role in gastrointestinal illness.

Thriving alongside trillions of bacteria in the human digestive tract is a vast population of viruses. Ever since one such denizen of the gut microbiome, known as picobirnavirus, was first spotted decades ago, researchers thought it directly infected human tissue and played a role in gastrointestinal illness. But researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborators have just rewritten that story: This widespread virus infects gut bacteria, not human cells.