DREAMSTIME
A 3D rendering of E. coli bacteria. The MCR-1 gene grants bacteria
like E. coli resistance to the antibiotic colistin, one of the most
powerful drugs of last resort for bacterial infections.
An
alarming new superbug gene that makes bacteria resistant to a
last-resort antibiotic has been detected in Canada, the Star has
learned.
The gene, called MCR-1, produces an enzyme
that makes bacteria invincible to colistin, a highly toxic antibiotic
used only when all other drugs have failed.
MCR-1 was first reported in November by scientists in China, who published
a paper in The Lancet
that set off alarm bells across the globe. Analyzing bacterial samples
in southeastern China, researchers found 260 samples of E. coli with the
MCR-1 gene on meat, hospital patients and farm animals — the likely
source of this new superbug, the paper suggests.
But the news that really sent a shudder
through the scientific community was that MCR-1 is located on a plasmid,
a free-floating snippet of DNA that bacteria can easily share, thus
spreading the resistance to other organisms.
No comments:
Post a Comment