The results of a study conducted by scientists from Northwestern University (USA), published in the journal PLOS Pathogens.
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Erica Hartmann and her colleagues collected 166 dust samples in 43 different buildings, including 44 in the fitness center. The analysis showed that in the genome of living bacteria living in house dust samples, there are areas containing antibiotic resistance genes. The presence of such genes ensures the resistance of bacteria to the action of various classes of antibiotics, including penicillins and macrolides. A total of 183 such genes were found.
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Moreover, antibiotic-resistant bacteria living in house dust themselves are for the most part completely harmless to humans. However, as Hartmann and her colleagues established, these bacteria have an extremely dangerous property – the ability to share antibiotic resistance genes with other bacteria, among which there may well be pathogens, that is, pathogens of infectious diseases that usually enter the premises from the outside world. After that, pathogenic bacteria become “supermicrobes”, that is, they acquire the property of invulnerability in the face of antibiotics.
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As Hartmann explained, the bacteria that live in house dust may well be stressed — they may lack nutrition, the environment may be too dry or too cool, or contain antimicrobial components. In a situation of stress, an ancient evolutionary mechanism is activated – bacteria transfer their genes to other microorganisms not by division, but by horizontal gene transfer. That is, bacteria begin to exchange copies of their genes with neighbors who may have more ability to withstand stress. Researchers found 57 of these potentially transferable genome regions containing antibiotic resistance genes.
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The scientists’ further plans are to find out how different cleaning methods affect the risk of triggering the mechanism of horizontal gene transfer, and is it possible to prevent the spread of supermicrobes by changing the cleaning method?
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