Antibiotic resistance in the most unlikeliest of places

• Published in: Microbial biotechnology Vol. 10; no. 6; pp. 1454 - 1456
• Main Author: Bartlett, Douglas H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.11.2017; John Wiley and Sons Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: Aminoglycosides; Antibiotic resistance; Antibiotics; Biotechnology; Brines; Deep sea; Drug resistance; Enzymatic activity; Enzyme kinetics; Highlight; Mercury; Mercury (metal); Metabolites; Microorganisms; Proteins; Secondary metabolites; Thermal stability; Three dimensional models; Siam; Red Sea
• ISSN: 1751-7915; 1751-7915
• DOI: 10.1111/1751-7915.12868

According to the CDC, each year at least 2 million people become infected with antibiotic‐resistant bacteria, and of these, at least 23 000 perish (https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/index.html). Active sites for predicted enzyme activities were found to be conserved, and 3D modelling reinforced the predicted enzyme classifications and identified modifications possibly associated with enhanced thermal stability, such as increased numbers of salt bridges. [...]while the deep sea contains a variety of habitats of growing interest in the search for bioactive secondary metabolites, including aminoglycosides (Tamegai et al., ; Kamjam et al., ), the examination of antibiotic resistance among microbes present at depth had not been previously pursued. [...]given the metal content of the brines, finding a mercury‐detoxifying enzyme, while it is interesting and obviously critical to adaptation, is perhaps not as surprising as that of the genes uncovered in the Microbial Biotechnology article.