Articles of Significant Interest Selected from This Issue by the Editors

摘要

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis , which causes paratuberculosis in cattle, is shed into the environment by infected cows. Viable M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis is detectable in cow barn dust. Eisenberg and colleagues (p. 54585464) have experimentally implicated dust as a potential source of transmission of this organism. Their longitudinal study aimed to quantify the relationship between M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis -infected cows and viable M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis bacteria in dust at 8 commercial dairy herd facilities. Results showed a positive relationship between the number of M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis milk ELISA-positive cows and the number of viable M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis -positive settled dust samples, indicating that selective culling could reduce environmental loads of this bacterium.Sulfonamide antibiotics and particularly sulfamethoxazole are prone to being released in the environment. This emerging pollutant is recalcitrant to biological wastewater treatment, and its global presence in water bodies is known to contribute to the dissemination of antibiotic resistances. Ricken et al. (p. 55505558) report on a novel mechanism of degradation of sulfamethoxazole and other sulfonamides that is substantially different from pathways proposed by degradation prediction systems. Through this pathway, Microbacterium sp. strain BR1 is not only capable of eliminating the bactericides but also able to gain nutrition from them. The results proved valuable for revisiting available studies on the bacterial degradation of sulfonamides.