Bacteria have developed sophisticated systems to acquire resistance to effects of antibiotics. I will likely discuss that in a future post. A more recent discovery is the attention of this post.
The findings were published in Cell Reports in December of 2017.
source
Bacteria have all kinds of specialized tools. Some of these specialized tools are secretory systems that secrete various substances to affect their environment. One of these systems is called TYPE 6 SECRETION SYSTEMS (T6SSs). The team at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel looked at the bacteria Acinetobacter Baylyi.
The T6SSs of Acinetobacter produces a mixture of different “poisons”. These are called EFFECTORS. 5 different effectors have been described. These effectors kill competing bacteria and damage the cell wall. These insides of the target cells are released. The Acinetobacter then takes up DNA fragments of the killed bacteria and incorporates the genes with it own genes. Some of these looted genes carry drug resistance genes and when incorporated confer immunity upon the Acinetobacter.
Bacteria resist such killing and looting by producing antitoxins that fight against the T6SSs effectors. As this is a newly described phenomenon it is not clear yet as to what degree this balance exists in nature.
We had previously known that bacteria develop defensive mutations and other acquired mechanisms to protect themselves against antibiotics. Now they are known to kill and steal as well.
Resistant bacteria are a threat to our present and will likely be a greater threat in the coming years. We will have to keep coming up with newer and newer antibiotics and the process is not easy. CDC tracks and reports data on illnesses and deaths caused by resistant bacteria. CDC reports at least 2.049,442 illnesses and at least 23,000 deaths caused by antibiotic resistance.
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