

They arise from a single clone that is termed H30-Rx for its resistance to treatment. That analysis indicated that almost all ST131 strains responsible for the notoriously resistant infections are very closely related to each other. Then, using a technique called whole-genome-sequence-based phylogenomic analysis, the researchers constructed a family tree that revealed the bacteria’s evolutionary history. In the new study, researchers sequenced the genomes of scores of ST131 bacterial samples collected from patients and animals around the world. Johnson, professor of Medicine at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Minnesota. But this was proven to be incorrect by the laboratories of Sokurenko and two other lead investigators on the study: Lance Price, professor of environmental and occupational health at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and an associate professor in the Pathogen Genomics Division of the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Arizona, and James R.

These various resistant strains were assumed to have emerged independently around the world in response to their exposure to antibiotics. As a result, the infections are increasingly difficult to treat. This change rendered a broad spectrum of antibiotics, including highly-potent penicillin derivatives and cephalosporins, ineffective against these strains of bacteria. More recently, theses pathogens also acquired genes for extended-spectrum beta-lactamase. The ST131 bacteria were notable because they had acquired resistance to a class of relatively new antibiotics called fluoroquinolones, which were commonly used to treat urinary tract infections. These are the most common bacterial infection in women and elderly. coli belonging to the ST131 strains family emerged as a major cause of urinary tract and kidney infections.

Over the past decade, public health officials noted that E. “We now know that we are dealing with a single enemy, and that by focusing on this super-clone we can have a substantial impact on this worldwide epidemic,” Sokurenko said. coli bacteria belong to just one closely related clone. Unlike previously identified superbugs that are usually from multiple strains, these E.

Sokurenko, University of Washington professor of microbiology, as well as researchers at Group Health Clinical Laboratory and the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle. The research on drug-resistant E.coli was conducted by an international collaborative research team that included Dr. This antibiogram compares the resistance of the H30-Rx strain to another strain of E.coli that also infects the urinary tract.
