Every year, millions of children suffer painful earache caused by the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae. Tests on mice now suggest that a nasal spray containing viral enzymes called lysins might end this misery.
S. pneumoniae bacteria live harmlessly in our noses until respiratory viruses come along and disrupt the nasal membrane, allowing bacteria to migrate to the middle ear and start infections.
Bacteria-infecting viruses called phages use lysins to destroy bacterial cell walls so that they can escape and infect other cells. To show how they could destroy S. pneumoniae and prevent ear infections, Vincent Fischetti of Rockefeller University…
