Attach Me If You Can: Murine Norovirus Binds to Commensal Bacteria and Fungi.

The presence of commensal bacteria enhances both acute and persistent infection of murine noroviruses. For several enteric viral pathogens, mechanisms by which these bacteria enhance infection involve direct interactions between the virus and bacteria. While it has been demonstrated that human noroviruses bind to a variety of commensal bacteria, it is not known if this is also true for murine noroviruses. The goal of this study was to characterize interactions between murine noroviruses and commensal bacteria and determine the impact of bacterial growth conditions, incubation temperature and time, on murine norovirus attachment to microbes that comprise the mammalian microbiome. We show that murine noroviruses bind directly to commensal bacteria and show similar patterns of attachment as human norovirus VLPs examined under the same conditions. Furthermore, while binding levels are not impacted by the growth phase of the bacteria, they do change with time and incubation temperature. We also found that murine norovirus can bind to a commensal fungal species, Candidaalbicans.

Quantifying Human Norovirus Virus-like Particles Binding to Commensal Bacteria Using Flow Cytometry.

Commensal bacteria are well established to impact infection of eukaryotic viruses. Direct binding between the pathogen and the host microbiome is responsible for altering infection for many of these viruses. Thus, characterizing the nature of virus-bacteria binding is a foundational step needed for elucidating the mechanism(s) by which bacteria alter viral infection. For human norovirus, commensal bacteria enhance B cell infection. The virus directly binds to these bacteria, indicating that this direct interaction is involved in the mechanism of infection enhancement. A variety of techniques can be used to quantify interactions between bacteria and viruses including scintillation counting of radiolabeled viruses and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Both methods require the use of live virus, which may need to be generated in the laboratory. Currently, none of the established in vitro culture systems available for human norovirus are robust enough to allow for generation of highly concentrated viral stocks. In lieu of live virus, virus-like particles (VLPs) have been used to characterize the interactions between norovirus and bacteria. Herein a flow cytometry method is described with uses virus specific antibodies to quantify VLP binding to gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. Inclusion of both bacteria only and isotype controls allowed for optimization of the assay to reduce background antibody binding and accurate quantification of VLP attachment to the bacteria tested. High VLP:bacterium ratios result in VLPs binding to large percentages of the bacterial population. However, when VLP quantities are decreased, the percent of bacteria bound also decreases. Ultimately, this method can be employed in future experiments elucidating the specific conditions and structural components that regulate norovirus:bacterial interactions.