Bakteerien antibioottiresistenssi ikivanha asia

[soijuv]

Antibiootit keksittiin n.70v sitten. Samaan aikaan alettiin enenevässä määrin havaita bakteerien selviytyvän antibiooteista. Aiemmin oletettiin resistenssin johtuvan antibioottien laajasta käytöstä. Nyt on kuitenkin huomattu ilmiön olevan vanhan. Tutkimuksissa 30 000 vuotta vanhassa sedimentissä oleva DNA oli resistenttiä useimpia nykyisiä antibiootteja vastaan esim. B-laktaamit, tetrasykliinit, glykopeptidit jne.

Antibiotic resistance is ancient

Vanessa M. D?Costa,
Christine E. King,
Lindsay Kalan,
Mariya Morar,
Wilson W. L. Sung,
Carsten Schwarz,
Duane Froese,
Grant Zazula,
Fabrice Calmels,
Regis Debruyne,
G. Brian Golding,
Hendrik N. Poinar
& Gerard D. Wright

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Nature
477,
457?461
(22 September 2011)
doi:10.1038/nature10388

Received
28 March 2011
Accepted
22 July 2011
Published online
31 August 2011

The discovery of antibiotics more than 70 years ago initiated a period of drug innovation and implementation in human and animal health and agriculture. These discoveries were tempered in all cases by the emergence of resistant microbes1, 2. This history has been interpreted to mean that antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria is a modern phenomenon; this view is reinforced by the fact that collections of microbes that predate the antibiotic era are highly susceptible to antibiotics3. Here we report targeted metagenomic analyses of rigorously authenticated ancient DNA from 30,000-year-old Beringian permafrost sediments and the identification of a highly diverse collection of genes encoding resistance to β-lactam, tetracycline and glycopeptide antibiotics. Structure and function studies on the complete vancomycin resistance element VanA confirmed its similarity to modern variants. These results show conclusively that antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon that predates the modern selective pressure of clinical antibiotic use.