Aminoglycoside antibiotics are critically important for treating several types of infections with multi-resistant bacteria.
A completely new resistance gene, which is likely to counteract the newest aminoglycoside drug, plazomycin, was recently discovered by scientists in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The bacterial gene the team discovered in river sediment from India does not resemble any known antibiotic resistance gene.
But when the scientists compared its DNA sequence to already published bacterial DNA sequences, they found that it was already present in several pathogens, including Salmonella and Pseudomonas, from the USA, China and Italy. Until now, no one had realised that it was a resistance gene.
The research team has named the gene “gar”.
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