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The BBC reports that the world is on the cusp of a 'post-antibiotic era'. A new mutation of bacteria in China has something "dubbed the MCR-1 gene", that prevented colistin - the antibiotic of last resort - from killing bacteria.
Chinese scientists identified a new mutation, dubbed the MCR-1 gene, that prevented colistin from killing bacteria.
The report in the Lancet Infectious Diseases showed resistance in a fifth of animals tested, 15% of raw meat samples and in 16 patients.
[...] Resistance to colistin has emerged before. However, the crucial difference this time is the mutation has arisen in a way that is very easily shared between bacteria.
There's plenty to blame - pumping livestock full of them for "preventative measures", doctors prescribing them for colds and flus, and people not finishing a course when they are prescribed them - but the future currently looks bleak.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheLink on Friday November 20 2015, @09:39AM
There's a fitness cost for multidrug resistance
I'm not so sure about that:
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/43584/title/Antibiotic-Resistance-Can-Boost-Bacterial-Fitness/ [the-scientist.com]
Certain mutations that seem to confer antibiotic resistance in three different pathogenic bacterial species also provide a growth advantage and increased virulence during an infection, according to a study published in Science Translational Medicine today (July 22). While there are many well-known examples of antibiotic-resistance mutations that reduce bacterial fitness, scientists at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and their colleagues have found that some antibiotic-resistant pathogenic bacteria outgrow their antibiotic-sensitive counterparts, even in the absence of antibiotic selection.