Crossing the Mucosal Barrier: A Commensal Bacterium Gives Dengue Virus a Leg-Up in the Mosquito Midgut

摘要

Commensal bacteria that colonize the midgut of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes can influence the transmission of arthropod-borne viruses. In this issue of Cell Host & Microbe, Wu et al. (2019) show that Serratia marcescens bacteria secrete enhancin proteins that cleave membrane-bound mucins, thereby facilitating dengue virus infection of midgut epithelial cells.