Posted on 04/12/2012 5:42:31 PM PDT by blam
Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Found In Four Million-Year-Old Cave
The bacteria, found in the isolated Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, over 1300 feet below the earth, may hold the secret to understanding drug resistance.
Alexander Besant
April 12, 2012 17:19
Researchers said they discovered ancient bacteria resistant to both natural and synthetic antibiotics while investigating a 4-million-year-old cave in New Mexico.
The finding, may have implications for both the understanding of drug resistance and ways of preventing it.
The scientists involved collected 93 strains of bacteria from Lechuguilla cave, approximately 1300 feet deep, and found that all the strains collected were resistant to at least one antibiotic out of the 26 tested with some resistant to up to 14 different types, reported the Los Angeles Times.
The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has largely been attributed to overconsumption of the drugs by humans and animals.
Yet, given the age and isolation of the cave, said Time, drug resistance may also have other causes.
“Clinical microbiologists have been perplexed for the longest time. When you bring a new antibiotic into the hospital, resistance inevitably appears shortly thereafter, within months to years,” study leader Gerry Wright, a chemical biologist at McMaster University in Ontario, told National Geographic.
“It’s still a big question: Where is this coming from. Almost no one thought to look at other bacteria, the ones that don’t necessarily cause disease.”
The discovery of antibiotic resistant bacteria in an isolated cave is a major advancement in understanding infectious diseases around the world, reported the Canadian Press.
"The actual source of much of this resistance are harmless bacteria that live in the environment," Wright said.
"This has important clinical implications," Wright said, according to UPI. "It suggests that there are far more antibiotics in the environment that could be found and used to treat currently untreatable infections."
My bet is that 93 strains of surface bacteria would have a similar resistance profile.
Could that mean that the genes for resistance to antibiotics were always there?
More ammunition to use against those who claim that bacteria is evolving. The truth is that some bacteria is naturally resistant to antibiotics.
it depends if they were Levi’s or Wranglers.
If was say that it was, then we can't blame it on people for using antibiotics, so no.
Please, no Michelle jokes.
I had mrsa in my spine requiring three surguries in 3 months. I thought this was a decimon post. Anyone seen him lately??
If true it means they will be weaponized in short order. There are just too many people, they are giving Al’s planet a fever.
Don't know anything.
A search shows that decimon posted last on January 21, 2012.
Pandemic bug ping...
Weird. Prayers his way if need be..
I think all the current antibiotics are based on natural antibiotics discovered in various organisms.
There are machines screening millions of compounds for antibiotic, antitumor and other medicinal virtues.
Didn’t the X-Files movie begin this way?
Scientists discovering bacteria millions of years old that are not vulnerable to modern medicine, somehow that plot rings a bell.
Yes, but if the bacteria is already resistant - then we'd find what we already have... right?
This is just strange enough that I thought you’d enjoy it. Hope you’re feeling better - you’re in my prayers.
Just about all antibiotics are derived from bacteria or fungi.
very few are just “chemical conglomerations” Supposedly this
is due to the chemical wars going on between competing
microorganisms and we are using weapons which the
bacteria and fungus have already. (As a sidebar, does that mean that war is “natural”
and just like any behaviour which is overlooked cuz it is
“natural”, is war OK too? Should we accept the diversity that
is present with warlike folk?)
As far as resistance goes, most of the genetic information
is present in the world (pre human antibiotic development),
sometimes, it is passed on through
viral transmission of the gene, or by “bacterial” sex(there is
a way for bacteria to inject part of it’s genome into a
different bacteria) or rearrangement of genes already present.
Or by plasmids....From my understanding of this
subject, there may be some genome which develops
new genes which code for “resistance”, but it is certainly
not the main way “resistance” occurs. Since we didn’t know
the bacterial genomes before, we don’t know if the
resistance genes are new developments, at least yet.
The main reason why they say that resistance “develops” is
cuz it is now noticed to a greater extent than what was
thought previously.
Everyone talks about MRSA (i.e. methicillin resistant
staph aureus)...but when the drug methicillin first was
introduced in the early 60’s..there were already resistant
organisms...they just hadn’t spread around to the point
where they were clinically significant...Now they is.
Now ya did it!
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