Antibiotic Resistance in Wild Animals

In a study published this September in PLOS ONE, Cristóbal-Azkarate and a team of researchers from Cambridge, the University of Washington, and Fundación Lusara in Mexico City reported that they had detected an abundance of bacteria resistant to clinical antibiotics in the feces of seven wild species in the Veracruz region of southeast Mexico. In addition to howler monkeys, the superbugs were present in spider monkeys, tapirs, jaguars, a puma, a dwarf leopard, and jaguarundis—small wildcats native to the area. Moreover, monkeys that lived far from humans were just as likely to harbor drug-resistant bacteria as those that were closer to people.

While the discovery surprised Cristóbal-Azkarate, who primarily studies hormonal influences on primates, other researchers have documented antibiotic resistance in animals all over the world—from wild rodents in Britain to iguanas in the Galapagos Islands. “Resistance is everywhere.  It is found in places that are ‘pristine’ and in places that are ‘polluted,’” said Randall Singer, an epidemiologist at University of Minnesota.

Source: The Scientist

HOPE: Teixobactin Kills Super-Bugs in Mammals

Developed by a privately-held company, NovoBiotic. I hope that Teixobactin is affordable, and the owners become very rich.

A paper in the journal Nature details how the new antibiotic, dubbed teixobactin, proved completely effective at healing mice infected with the most common drug-resistant forms of super-bug MRSA and tuberculosis.

What’s more, it could take a long while for bacteria to become resistant – which is particularly useful as pathogens around the world build up resistance to treatments.

…The microbes that create teixobactin, along with another 24 potential new antibiotics, were found in a soil sample taken from a field in Maine. To grow the samples, the researchers put one bacterium in a board called an iCube and enclosed it in a semipermeable membrane.

The iCube is then put into a box of the wonder soil, taken from the field, and its payload allowed to grow. In this way, the bacteria reproduces efficiently outside of a petri dish and harvested for drug production.

…The drug itself isn’t going to be available for some years yet, however. While it has been proven non-toxic to other mammals, testing on human subjects now has to be carried out, but teixobactin looks like our best bet yet against mankind’s oldest enemy.

Source: The Register