̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

MRSA arose in hedgehogs long before antibiotic use

jg533 — Tue, 04 Jan 2022 11:07:30 +0000

Staphylococcus aureus first developed resistance to the antibiotic methicillin around 200 years ago, according to a large international collaboration including the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Denmark’s Serum Statens Institut and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which has traced the genetic history of the bacteria.

They were investigating the surprising discovery - from hedgehog surveys from Denmark and Sweden - that up to 60% of hedgehogs carry a type of MRSA called mecC-MRSA. ̽��ֱ��new study also found high levels of MRSA in swabs taken from hedgehogs across their range in Europe and New Zealand.

̽��ֱ��study is published today in the journal Nature.

̽��ֱ��researchers believe that antibiotic resistance evolved in Staphylococcus aureus as an adaptation to having to exist side-by-side on the skin of hedgehogs with the fungus Trichophyton erinacei, which produces its own antibiotics.

̽��ֱ��resulting methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is better known as the superbug MRSA. ̽��ֱ��discovery of this centuries-old antibiotic resistance predates antibiotic use in medical and agricultural settings.

“Using sequencing technology we have traced the genes that give mecC-MRSA its antibiotic resistance all the way back to their first appearance, and found they were around in the nineteenth century,” said Dr Ewan Harrison, a researcher at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and a senior author of the study.

He added: “Our study suggests that it wasn’t the use of penicillin that drove the initial emergence of MRSA, it was a natural biological process. We think MRSA evolved in a battle for survival on the skin of hedgehogs, and subsequently spread to livestock and humans through direct contact.”

Antibiotic resistance in bugs causing human infections was previously thought to be a modern phenomenon, driven by the clinical use of antibiotics. Misuse of antibiotics is now accelerating the process, and antibiotic resistance is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the world.

Since almost all the antibiotics we use today arose in nature, the researchers say it is likely that resistance to them already exists in nature too. Overuse of any antibiotic in humans or livestock will favour resistant strains of the bug, so it is only a matter of time before the antibiotic starts to lose its effectiveness.

“This study is a stark warning that when we use antibiotics, we have to use them with care. There’s a very big wildlife ‘reservoir’ where antibiotic-resistant bacteria can survive – and from there it’s a short step for them to be picked up by livestock, and then to infect humans,” said Professor Mark Holmes, a researcher in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine and a senior author of the report.

In 2011, previous work led by Professor Holmes first identified mecC -MRSA in human and dairy cow populations. At the time it was assumed the strain had arisen in the cows because of the large amount of antibiotics they are routinely given.

MRSA was first identified in patients in 1960, and around 1 in 200 of all MRSA infections are caused by mecC-MRSA. Due to its resistance to antibiotics, MRSA is much harder to treat than other bacterial infections. ̽��ֱ��World Health Organization now considers MRSA one of the world’s greatest threats to human health. It is also a major challenge in livestock farming.

̽��ֱ��findings are not a reason to fear hedgehogs, say the researchers: humans rarely get infections with mecC-MRSA, even though it has been present in hedgehogs for more than 200 years.

”It isn’t just hedgehogs that harbour antibiotic-resistant bacteria - all wildlife carries many different types of bacteria, as well as parasites, fungi and viruses,” said Holmes.

He added: “Wild animals, livestock and humans are all interconnected: we all share one ecosystem. It isn’t possible to understand the evolution of antibiotic resistance unless you look at the whole system.”

This research was funded by the Medical Research Council.

Reference
Larsen, J et al: ‘Emergence of methicillin resistance predates the clinical use of antibiotics.’ Nature, January 2022, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04265-w

Scientists have found evidence that a type of the antibiotic-resistant superbug MRSA arose in nature long before the use of antibiotics in humans and livestock, which has traditionally been blamed for its emergence.

We think MRSA evolved in a battle for survival on the skin of hedgehogs, and subsequently spread to livestock and humans through direct contact

Ewan Harrison

Pia B Hansen

Hedgehog

At a glance

Hedgehogs carry a fungus and a bacteria on their skin, and the two are locked in a battle for survival
̽��ֱ��fungus secretes antibiotics to kill the bacteria, but in response the bacteria has evolved antibiotic resistance – becoming Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA
Up to 60% of hedgehogs carry a type of MRSA called mecC-MRSA, which causes 1 in 200 of all MRSA infections in humans
Natural biological processes, not antibiotic use, drove the initial emergence of this superbug on hedgehogs around 200 years ago

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Attribution

Call of the wild collector

lw355 — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 06:00:53 +0000

Walking at ‘botanist pace’ on Mount Terror in South Africa, Dr Ángela Cano likes to stop and smell the succulents. She then measures, photographs, presses specimens and gathers seeds. Her work is helping to safeguard some of the rarest plants on Earth.

Ambitious project launched to map genomes of all life in British Isles

jg533 — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 00:01:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��£9.4m funding will support a collaboration of ten research institutes, museums and associated organisations to launch the first phase of sequencing all the species on the British Isles. This will see the teams collect and ‘barcode’ around 8,000 key British species of animal, plant and fungi, and deliver high-quality genomes of 2,000 species.

Exploring the genomes – the entire DNA - of these species will give an unprecedented insight into how life on Earth evolved. It will uncover new genes, proteins and metabolic pathways to help develop drugs for infectious and inherited diseases.

At a time when many species are under threat from climate change and human development, the data will also help characterise, catalogue and support conservation of global biodiversity for future generations.

“This project is the start of a transformation for biological research. It will change our relationship to the natural world by enabling us to understand life as never before,” said Professor Richard Durbin in Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Genetics, who will lead the ̽��ֱ��’s involvement in the collaboration. “It will create a knowledge resource for others to build on, just as we’ve seen with the Human Genome Project for human health.”

From the small fraction of the Earth’s species that have been sequenced, enormous advances have been made in knowledge and biomedicine. From plants, a number of lifesaving drugs have been discovered and are now being created in the lab – such as artemisinin for malaria and taxol for cancer.

Assembling the full genetic barcode of each species from the millions of genetic fragments generated in the sequencing process will rely on the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s expertise in computational analysis.

“Genome assembly is like doing a very complicated jigsaw puzzle. ̽��ֱ��genome revolution is all about information, and our ability to put the sequencing data together is based on cutting-edge computing techniques,” said Dr Shane McCarthy at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, who will work on the project with Professor Durbin.

̽��ֱ��project will identify and collect specimens that will include plants from the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Botanic Garden. It will set up new pipelines and workflows to process large numbers of species through DNA preparation, sequencing, assembly, gene finding and annotation. New methods will be developed for high-throughput and high-quality assembly of genomes and their annotation, and data will be shared openly through existing data sharing archives and project specific portals.

̽��ֱ��10 institutes involved in the project are:

• ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge
• Earlham Institute (EI)
• ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh
• EMBL’s-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI)
• ̽��ֱ��Marine Biological Association (Plymouth)
• Natural History Museum
• Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
• Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
• ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford
• Wellcome Sanger Institute

̽��ֱ��consortium ultimately aims to sequence the genetic code of 60,000 species that live in the British Isles. Its work will act as a launchpad for a larger ambition to sequence all species on Earth, as part of the Earth Biogenome Project.

Dr Michael Dunn, Head of Genetics and Molecular Sciences at Wellcome, said, “ ̽��ֱ��mission to sequence all life on the British Isles is ambitious, but by bringing together this diverse group of organisations we believe that we have the right team to achieve it. We’ll gain new insights into nature that will help develop new treatments for infectious diseases, identify drugs to slow ageing, generate new approaches to feeding the world and create new bio-materials.”

Adapted from a press release by Wellcome.

An unprecedented insight into the diverse range of species on the British Isles will be made possible by Wellcome funding to the Darwin Tree of Life project.

This project is the start of a transformation for biological research.

Richard Durbin

Jim Haseloff

Liverwort (Pellia epiphylla)

Yes

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

MRSA arose in hedgehogs long before antibiotic use

Hedgehogs carry a fungus and a bacteria on their skin, and the two are locked in a battle for survival

̽��ֱ��fungus secretes antibiotics to kill the bacteria, but in response the bacteria has evolved antibiotic resistance – becoming Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA

Up to 60% of hedgehogs carry a type of MRSA called mecC-MRSA, which causes 1 in 200 of all MRSA infections in humans

Natural biological processes, not antibiotic use, drove the initial emergence of this superbug on hedgehogs around 200 years ago

Call of the wild collector

Ambitious project launched to map genomes of all life in British Isles

**̽��ֱ��fungus secretes antibiotics to kill the bacteria, but in response the bacteria has evolved antibiotic resistance – becoming Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA**