Evolution and Antibiotic Resistance

Evolution and Antibiotic Resistance

Renee Keller

South University

Evolution and Antibiotic Resistance

Human beings are one the youngest forms of life on the earth, but the most dominant. The microbial population is the oldest form of life they are everywhere and able to adapt to their environment. Experts believe that microbes will be the only survivals of any global catastrophe until the all of life ends on the earth.

All living organisms rely on microbes to survive. Humans are dependent on microbes for various vitamins and other necessary co-factors. Our bodies provide a warm place for them to live, nutrition and possibly protection from predators, even though the relation between humans and microbes are not always helpful to us. There are different types of bacteria's that can cause the human body diseases that leaves damaging effects on the host. There has always been a search for ways to battle pathogenic organisms that causes death and suffering in humans.

Since the microbial world is everywhere the main treatment of infectious diseases are microbial chemical called antibiotics that can kill other microbes or restrain their growth. Some natural molecules might be for protective purpose some act as a messenger at low concentrations and exerts antibiotic activity at higher concentrations. The discovery of penicillin followed by other antimicrobials transformed medicine. Even though the antibiotics help the physicians to reduce human morbidity there were foreseen future problems.

Antibiotic resistance is not only man made but there were resistance genes that were already present in the bacterial population before humans begin to use antibiotics. For example resistance due to cefotaxime (CTX-M) β-lactamases the ancestral gene is thought to have been picked up from a strain of Kluyvera sp. transmitted to other bacteria. The result of extensive use of certain antibiotics this gene went through many mutations and gene transfers there is hundreds of CTX-Ms that is found in the bacterial pathogens around the world.

Although these genes were first found in the hospital but are being found more in our communities. Antibiotic resistance does have some benefits for modern biology and the human condition. Studies of plasmids, transposable elements, integrin systems and illegitimate recombination are important in gene trafficking. DNA technology came out of the use of antibiotic-resistance plasmids as vectors. An antibiotic resistance gene encoding with an appropriate broad spectrum antibiotic generated large libraries of knockouts in mice. Similar techniques and many other aspects both basic research and industrial processes now offer a rather large promise of stem cell base technology for human disease.

Genetic tools are available