TY - JOUR T1 - Bacteria facilitate viral co-infection of mammalian cells and promote genetic recombination JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/154021 SP - 154021 AU - A.K. Erickson AU - P.R. Jesudhasan AU - M.J. Mayer AU - A. Narbad AU - S.E. Winter AU - J.K. Pfeiffer Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/22/154021.abstract N2 - Intestinal bacteria promote infection of several mammalian enteric viruses, but the mechanisms and consequences are unclear. We screened a panel of 41 bacterial strains as a platform to determine how different bacteria impact enteric viruses. We found that most bacterial strains bound poliovirus, a model enteric virus. Given that each bacterium bound multiple virions, we hypothesized that bacteria may deliver multiple viral genomes to a mammalian cell even when very few virions are present, such as during the first replication cycle after inter-host transmission. We found that exposure to certain bacterial strains increased viral co-infection even when the ratio of virus to host cells was low. Bacteria-mediated viral co-infection correlated with bacterial adherence to cells. Importantly, bacterial strains that induced viral co-infection facilitated viral fitness restoration through genetic recombination. Thus, bacteria-virus interactions may increase viral fitness through viral recombination at initial sites of infection, potentially limiting abortive infections. ER -