Battling Bacteria with a Viral Protein

[OKIsItJustMe]

Source: Scientific American

March 26, 2007

Battling Bacteria with a Viral Protein

An enzyme used by viruses to break cell walls beats back bacteria that cause ear infections, pneumonia

After a bout of the flu, lingering germs can wreak havoc on the weakened immune system. These pathogens are not influenza organisms but, rather, bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, a microbe that normally lies dormant in the nose or throat of children but migrates on a path cleared by the flu to the middle ear where it causes an infection called acute otitis. There are more than 24 million cases of middle ear infections—which can cause pain, fever, vomiting and appetite loss—diagnosed each year in the U.S.

"Secondary bacterial infections cause much of the sickness and about 25 percent of all deaths during the flu season, and 50 to 95 percent of deaths during pandemics of influenza," says Jonathan McCullers, an infectious disease specialist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and co-author of a study that suggests a new way of treating such conditions. "Eliminating these secondary infections could dramatically reduce the sickness and death rates among susceptible populations such as infants and the elderly."

McCullers and Vincent Fischetti, co-heads of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology at the Rockefeller University, provide evidence that the enzyme lysin can be tailored to kill specific secondary pathogens before they pounce on compromised immune systems. Fischetti notes that this technology could potentially be used to prevent pandemics during an avian or other flu outbreak by destroying secondary germs that might attack when the immune system is compromised. "If we can go in and, during a pandemic, treat individuals that are either susceptible to flu—the elderly or young children—or basically everybody during that period of time and decolonize them," he says, "we have a better chance of saving a lot of lives."

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