New resistance gene found in 'high risk' multidrug-resistant pathogen

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-07/asfm-nrg071216.php

Public Release: 12-Jul-2016
New resistance gene found in 'high risk' multidrug-resistant pathogen
American Society for Microbiology

A team of Italian investigators has discovered a new variant of an emerging antibiotic resistance mechanism. The new variant, dubbed mcr-1.2, confers resistance to colistin, a last-resort antibiotic against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative pathogens. The research is published July 11, in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

"This is a particularly worrisome development for the future of antimicrobial therapy," said corresponding author Gian Maria Rossolini, M.D., Director of the Clinical Microbiology and Virology Unit, Florence Careggi University Hospital, Florence. More worrying is that the new resistance mechanism was discovered on a multidrug-resistant strain of the pathogen Klebsiella pneumoniae, she added. That bacterium was isolated from a rectal swab of a child hospitalized with leukemia.

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