Environmental stress drives clearance of a persistent enteric virus in mice

Abstract

Persistent viral infections are associated with long-term health issues and prolonged transmission. How external perturbations after initial exposure affect the duration of infection is unclear. Here we discovered that murine astrovirus, an enteric RNA virus, persists indefinitely when mice remain unperturbed but is cleared rapidly after cage change. In addition to eliminating the external viral reservoir, cage change also induced interferon-stimulated genes in the intestinal epithelium that are necessary for viral clearance. We further identified that displacing infected animals initially caused a temporary period of immune suppression through the stress hormone corticosterone, which was followed by an immune rebound characterized by activation of CD8 T cells responsible for downstream epithelial antiviral responses. Our findings show how viral persistence can be disrupted by preventing re-exposure and activating immunity upon stress recovery, indicating that external factors can be manipulated to shorten the duration of a viral infection.