This is how norovirus invades the body
The pathogen targets a rare type of gut cell, a study in mice finds
How a nasty, contagious stomach virus lays claim to the digestive system just got a little less mysterious.
In mice, norovirus infects rare cells in the lining of the gut called tuft cells. Like beacons in a dark sea, these cells glowed with evidence of a norovirus infection in fluorescent microscopy images, researchers report in the April 13 Science.
If norovirus also targets tuft cells in humans, “maybe that’s the cell type we need to be treating,” says study coauthor Craig Wilen, a physician scientist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.