On the Trail of the Other Resistomes

摘要

In addition to those in soil and in the human gut, microbes from agriculture and aquaculture are believed to contribute substantially to the exchange of antibiotic resistance genes. In the United States and Europe, antibiotics are used four times as often in the food industry as in human medicine. Frank Aarestrup from the Technical University of Denmark has shown that this high consumption has led to high levels of antibiotic resistance in gut bacteria from farm animals. Furthermore, computational genomics analysis from Eric Aim's group at MIT reveals frequent transfer of resistance genes between microbes from farm animals and those in human microbiota. Antibiotic usage is also growing at an alarming rate in aquaculture as more seafood is harvested this way. Felipe Cabello of New York Medical College and his colleagues have shown a concomitant increase in antibiotic resistance of bacteria associated with farmed fish.