Viral enzyme recruited in fight against ear infection

22 March 2007

Parents might one day give their children a weekly treatment with a nasal spray of virus enzymes to prevent them from getting a severe middle ear infection.

Such a treatment would kill the disease-causing bacteria without the use of antibiotics, thereby avoiding the problem of antibiotic resistance, according to a study done in mice by investigators from St Jude Children's Research Hospital and The Rockefeller University in New York.

Middle ear infection, also called acute otitis media, is an inflammation of the middle ear space that can cause pain, fever, irritability, lack of appetite and vomiting. The middle ear is the space just before the eardrum. About half of all children carry the bacteria that cause acute otitis media, which migrate from the nose and throat to the middle ear after an initial influenza virus infection paves the way.

The investigators based their treatment on the ability of viruses called phages to break out of bacteria they infect by using a special enzyme to destroy the cell walls. Phages infect bacteria in a way that is similar to how viruses infect animal cells. Once inside, the virus hijacks the cell’s biochemical machinery and forces it to make many copies of the virus. After the new crop of viruses is made, a viral enzyme breaks apart the infected bacterial cell wall and allows the new viruses to escape and infect additional cells.

"The nasal spray may eventually be used weekly during the flu season to keep the person free of Streptococcus pneumoniae or after someone is infected with the flu virus, said Vincent Fischetti PhD, a professor and co-head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology at The Rockefeller University. "This might truly be a case in which an ounce of prevention would be worth a pound of cure."

Source: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital press release
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