Visitors Now: | |
Total Visits: | |
Total Stories: |
Story Views | |
Now: | |
Last Hour: | |
Last 24 Hours: | |
Total: |
Previous posts have discussed how copper salts select for transferable antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Thois has just come out:
Soil Harbors Antibiotic Resistance
Identical resistance genes in soil and clinical bacteria hint at dangerous genetic arms trade that is aggravating the antibiotic-resistance crisis. By Ed Yong | August 30, 2012
Harmless bacteria from American soils carry the same antibiotic-resistance genes as many pathogenic microbes around the world, suggesting there is a secret arms trade running between the bacteria in our soils and those that ravage our bodies with disease. Such a trade has long been suspected, but Gautam Dantasfrom the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has now found the clearest evidence for it. “The genes are 100 percent identical,” he said.
The research, published today (August 30) in Science, confirms that soil bacteria are an important reservoir of resistance genes, serving as an ancient stockpiles of shields and armor that disease-causing microbes can tap into. This may have contributed to the recent rise in multidrug-resistant microbes. “[The movement of] resistance between environment and clinic becomes a certainty rather that a hypothetical threat,” said Gerry Wright, a microbiologist at McMaster University, who was not involved in the research….
@ Soil Harbors Antibiotic Resistance | The Scientist:
2012-08-30 22:20:54
Source: http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2012/08/more-reasons-why-use-of-copper.html