Washington, D.C. -- A purified extract prepared from a common microbe and delivered to the lungs of laboratory mice in a spray set off a healthy immune response and provided powerful protection against all four major classes of pathogens including those responsible for anthrax and bubonic plague, according to a presentation at the American Society for Cell Biology’s 47th Annual Meeting.In addition, when the researchers exposed another group of mice to an aerosol of live Streptococcus pneumoniae, the only animals that survived were the ones that had been pre-treated with the spray. A total of 83 percent of these mice survived. None of the untreated animals lived.
