Viral strategies

Microorganisms have a lot of tricks up their sleeve. From expressing more efflux pumps, to zombifying their hosts they have numerous strategies that leave us feeling "Hey, I should have thought about it"!

Some viruses aid in making you more susceptible to mosquito bites: "Acetophenone is made by some Bacillus bacteria that grow on human (and mouse) skin. Normally skin produces an antimicrobial peptide that keeps Bacillus populations in check. But it turns out that when mice are infected with dengue and Zika, they don't produce as much of the antimicrobial peptide, and the Bacillus grows faster." [1] Hong Zhang, Yibin Zhu, Ziwen Liu, Yongmei Peng, Wenyu Peng, Liangqin Tong, Jinglin Wang, Qiyong Liu, Penghua Wang, Gong Cheng. A volatile from the skin microbiota of flavivirus-infected hosts promotes mosquito attractiveness. Cell, 2022; DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.05.016

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