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Post date: Jul 13, 2016 2:54:42 PM
"Deadly medical disaster slowly unfolds" The rise of a dangerous gene in bacteria could mean the end of the golden age of antibiotics. (7/12/16)
BY MELISSA HEALY
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
ROSSLYN MAYBACK was part of a team at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Bethesda, Md., that identified a strain of Escherichia coli bacteria with a gene that could spread antibiotic resistance.
BETHESDA, Md. — In early April, experts at a military lab outside Washington intensified their search for evidence that a dangerous new biological threat had penetrated the nation’s borders.
They didn’t have to hunt long.
On May 18, a team working at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research here had its first look at a sample of the bacterium Escherichia coli taken from a 49-year-old woman in Pennsylvania. She had a urinary tract infection with a disconcerting knack for surviving the assaults of antibiotic medications. Her sample was one of six from across the country delivered to the lab of microbiologist Patrick McGann.
Within hours, a preliminary analysis deepened concern at the lab. Over the next several days, more sophisticated genetic sleuthing confirmed Mc-Gann’s worst fears.
There in the bacterium’s DNA was a gene dubbed mcr-1. Its presence made the pathogen impervious to the venerable antibiotic colistin.
More ominous, the gene’s presence on a plasmid — a tiny mobile loop of DNA that can be readily snapped off and attached to other bacteria — suggested that it could readily jump to other E. coli bacteria or to entirely different forms of disease-causing organisms. That would make them impervious to colistin as well.
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