Month: September 2022

IN ONLY 71 YEARS, we have so misused a lifesaving class of antibiotic molecules that they are almost unusable, and have so disincentivized innovators that the pipeline is dry. We have only ourselves to blame. View in LinkedIn

ANTIBIOTIC GENE JUMPING. "The movement of a transgene from plant to microbe could pose a significant risk, especially if an antibiotic resistance gene, originally from a bacterium, could be transferred to a pathogenic bacterium, causing new antibiotic resistance problems for human health." http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/oct0501.htm View in LinkedIn

GENE INSERTS. "A major problem with many types of vectors, and hence also GMOs, is that they contain genes that confer resistance to antibiotics, herbicides, insecticides and other cytotoxic products, and these can be spread in the environment and create ecological problems." https://lnkd.in/eJ8cwgX View in LinkedIn

INSERTS OF ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE GENES as markers in GMO constructs. What was convenient in the lab has turned into a potential disaster in the field. A clear case of not thinking it through carefully enough both from a science and a regulatory perspective. View in LinkedIn

ANTIBIOTIC CONSTRUCT IN GMOs. "Researchers have expended much energy and resources into developing alternative transgenic plant production schemes such as herbicide tolerance, positive selection, and marker-free selection. All these alternatives have prominent drawbacks. After all, approximately 70% of all transgenic plants have been produced using the neomycin phosphotransferase II (nptII) gene from Escherichia coli for good reason: it works, especially in most dicot species." http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/oct0501.htm View in LinkedIn

HGT IN GMOs? "How serious is the threat of HGT from transgenic plants to bacteria? Transgenic plant-to-microbe HGT has been shown to occur under experimental conditions when the bacteria already contained a form of the plant transgene, but gene transfer from transgenic plants to bacteria has never been shown occurring in the field." Quaint at best. http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/oct0501.htm View in LinkedIn

NO ANTIBIOTIC MARKER GENES PLEASE. "There is a lack of data on the real rates of HGT between transgenic plants and microbes, and hence prestigious groups around the world, such as WHO, FAO, and the NAS, are urging researchers to produce transgenic plants without antibiotic resistance markers." A wise precautionary principle given what we know about horizontal gene transfer (HGT). http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/oct0501.htm View in LinkedIn

HGT AND ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE. "Culture-independent sampling in conjunction with a functional cloning approach identified diverse antibiotic resistance genes for different classes of antibiotics in gut microbiomes from both conventionally raised and free-range chickens. Many of the genes are phylogenetically distant from known resistance genes." (HGT = Horizontal Gene Transfer). https://lnkd.in/ek24FD7 View in LinkedIn

MOBILE ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE (AR) GENES. "Sommer et al., functionally characterized the AR reservoir in the human gut microbiota; many AR genes identified using a culture-independent approach are evolutionarily distant from known resistance genes, first demonstrating the immense diversity of AR genes in the human microbiome." https://lnkd.in/ek24FD7 View in LinkedIn

PLETHORA OF REASONS FOR CAUTION. "Antibiotic treatment selects for resistant bacteria, increases opportunities for horizontal gene transfer, and enables intrusion of pathogenic organisms through depletion of occupied natural niches, with profound implications for the emergence of resistance." https://lnkd.in/eusKgr4 View in LinkedIn