Friday, January 27, 2012

Superbugs spied off the Antarctic coast

Editorial: "Antarctic superbugs should alert people everywhere"

BACTERIA that can resist nearly all antibiotics have been found in Antarctic seawater.

Bj?rn Olsen of Uppsala University in Sweden and colleagues took seawater samples between 10 and 300 metres away from Chile's Antarctic research stations, Bernardo O'Higgins, Arturo Prat and Fildes Bay. A quarter of the samples of Escherichia coli bacteria carried genes that made an enzyme called ESBL, which can destroy penicillin, cephalosporins and related antibiotics (Applied and Environmental Microbiology, DOI: 10.1128/AEM.07320-11).

Bacteria with these genes can be even more dangerous than the better known superbug MRSA. That's because the genes sit on a mobile chunk of DNA that can be acquired by many species of bacteria, increasing the incidence of drug-resistant infections such as the E. coli outbreak last year in Germany.

The type of ESBL they found, called CTX-M, is common in bacteria in people, and the Uppsala study found that concentrations of resistant bacteria were higher close to the sewage outfalls from the stations. Some Antarctic stations started shipping out human faeces for incineration after gut bacteria were found nearby. Chile's research stations have virtually no sewage treatment in place, says Olsen.

Recent work shows the bacteria may hang on to the genes for CTX-M even when no longer exposed to antibiotics, suggesting that superbugs can survive in the wild, with animals acting as a reservoir. Penguins near the Chilean stations have been checked and are free of ESBL, though Olsen is now looking at the area's gulls as he has found ESBL-producing bugs in gulls in France.

"If these genes are in Antarctica, it's an indication of how far this [problem] has gone," he says.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

Have your say

Only subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in.

Only personal subscribers may leave comments on this article

Subscribe now to comment.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1c28f790/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg213284940B20A0A0Esuperbugs0Espied0Eoff0Ethe0Eantarctic0Ecoast0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

tmobile johnny cash serbia spongebob squarepants rafael nadal ellen acl

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.