Herpesvirus Protected Mice Against Plague

In a 2007 study, latent herpesvirus infections protected mice against Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes bubonic plague. A man named Skip Virgin, a viral immunologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and his colleagues found that the infections increased interferon gamma, placing the immune system on alert. The bacteria then grew more slowly and killed fewer mice.

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