Viruses "listen" to other viruses: CEU UCH researchers take part in a new study of communication between different viruses

Researchers from the University Cardenal Herrera CEU (CEU UCH) José R. Penadés and Nuria Quiles participated in the study published today in Cell, by the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia (IBV-CSIC) and Imperial College London, on the communication between different viruses.

José R. Penadés and Nuria Quiles of CEU Cardenal Herrera University (CEU UCH) and the Valencia Biomedical Institute (IBV-CSIC) and Imperial College London are involved in the study published today in Cell.

Bacteriophages, or viruses that infect bacteria, can communicate with different viruses through an arbitration system, a mechanism that until now was thought to be limited to very similar viruses.This is demonstrated by a study conducted by researchers at the Central European University Cardenal Herrera (CEU UCH) together with the Institute of Biomedical Research of Valencia (IBV-CSIC) and Imperial College London, which has just been published in the scientific journal Cell.José R. Penadés, professor at CEU UCH and Imperial College London, and Nuria Quiles, professor and researcher at CEU UCH and leader of the MoBiLab group, are members of the research team.

The finding shows that these viruses, bacteriophages, can respond to external signals and coordinate their behavior during bacterial infections.This mechanism, which influences the decision to destroy bacteria or remain latent, is critical for understanding the evolution of viruses and their impact on bacterial communities.

According to the study's authors, this communication system, known as Arbitrium, allows viruses to exchange tiny chemical signals and collectively decide how to infect bacteria.These signals accumulate in the environment and help viruses adjust their behavior based on past infection history.Based on these signals, viruses decide between two strategies: destroying bacteria to release new virus particles;or integrated into its genome and latent.This mechanism showed for the first time that viruses make complex decisions.However, until now this communication was very specific and it was believed that each virus responded to signals generated by the same viruses.

A new study changes that view

The results of this new work, published in Cell by IBV-CSIC, Imperial College London and CEU UCH, show that some viruses can recognize and respond to signals produced by different viruses, a phenomenon known as crosstalk.In some cases, this interaction can even occur between viruses associated with different bacteria.

Professor Alberto Marina, researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of Valencia (IBV-CSIC), emphasizes: "We know that viruses can communicate, but we thought it was a closed and highly specialized system. Our work shows that, under certain conditions, they can respond to signals from other viruses that significantly expand the scope of this communication."

To test this phenomenon, the team designed experiments in which they exposed different viruses to chemical signals that were not their own.The results showed that in some cases these external signals were recognized and could change the behavior of the virus.These results were later confirmed in live viruses and in mixed communities, where this cross-communication was observed to influence collective decisions during infection.Furthermore, the researchers analyzed how this recognition occurs at the molecular level and confirmed that small differences in signals can activate or prevent one virus from responding to the signals of another.

Identification of viral "language".

Professor Jose R. Penades, from Imperial College London and CEU Cardenal Herrera University, "This discovery changes the way we understand viruses. They do not act in isolation but can interact with each other and adjust their behavior based on signals in their environment."This discovery expands our understanding of how viruses interact in nature.Instead of acting independently, viruses can influence each other through shared chemical signals, creating a new level of coordination within the microbial community.

Understanding this viral "language" also opens up new opportunities to hack into these systems.Manipulation of these signals may allow the behavior of viruses to be directed, for example by favoring latent states or limiting the destruction of bacteria in certain contexts.

The discovery of social behavior among bacterial pathogens, stages, opens the door to research areas with implications for new treatments that combat multidrug-resistant bacterial infections.

New strategies to fight viruses

In addition, this knowledge can contribute to the development of new strategies to control pathogenic bacteria or modulate the microbiome in clinical, industrial or environmental settings.Together, the study shows that viral communication is more flexible and extensive than previously thought, and that it plays a key role in the organization and evolution of microbial ecosystems.

This work was funded by a Synergy Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), with the participating researchers being part of the core teams of the project that aims to uncover communication mechanisms between viruses.

Article citation: Francesca Gallego-del-Sol, Daniel Sinn, Cora Chmielowska, Javier Mancheno-Bonillo, Yuyi Li, Sara Zamora-Caballero, Nuria Quiles-Puchalt, Jose R. Penades, and Alberto Marina.Phages communicate between microscopic cells.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2026.03.004