Drugs can pass through the body virtually intact: new concerns for resistance to antibiotics, identified pollution (science daily)

PharmaLive.com (7 December 2010) - an antibiotic is consumed, the researchers learned that up to 90% through a body without metabolize. This means that drugs may leave almost intact body through normal bodily functions.

In the case of agricultural areas, antibiotics excreted excreted can then capture stream and River through various ways, including releases of animal feeding operations, hatcheries and diffuse sources such as the flow fields environments where manure or biosolids applied. Water filtered through wastewater treatment may also contain antibiotics used plants.

Therefore, these releases are "potential sources of genes for resistance to antibiotics," said Amy Pruden, a grant from National Science Foundation career and teacher assistant of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech.

Pruden says "the presence of antibiotics even at sub-inhibitory concentrations can stimulate bacterial metabolism and thus contribute to the selection and maintenance of antibiotic resistance genes". "Once they are present in the rivers, the antibiotic resistance genes are capable of being transferred in bacteria, including pathogens by horizontal gene transfer".

The World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control recognize antibiotic resistance '"as a major health challenge critical of our time", wrote in an article published in a number of science technology and environment 2010 Pruden.

Pruden says that reduce the spread of resistance to antibiotics is a critical measure necessary to prolong the efficacy of currently available antibiotics. This is important given that the "new drug discovery can no longer keep pace with new antibiotic-resistant infections", explains Pruden.

Pruden has developed the concept of genes for resistance to antibiotics as environmental pollutants enjoys an international reputation in applied microbial ecology, environmental remediation and environmental reservoir of antimicrobial resistance.

In his work described in the science and environmental technology article, she and her co-authors, h. Storteboom, M. Arabi and J.G. Davis, all of Colorado State University and (b) criminal Delft University, the Netherlands identified specific patterns of occurrence of resistance gene to antibiotics in a Colorado watershed. Identification of these schemas represents a milestone to be able to distinguish between agriculture and wastewater from these genes in river environments treatment plant sources.

They say that these unique patterns of occurrence of the antibiotic resistance gene represent promising molecular signatures which can then be used as tracers of some artificial sources.

In their study, they identified three sites of mill wastewater, location of six animal feeding operation and three other locations on a blank area of the powder River in upstream section located in the Rocky Mountains. The frequency of detection of resistance genes were compared antibiotic sulfonamides 11 and tetracycline.

Their findings showed the detection of a particular 100 percent of the processing plant antibiotic resistance gene and feeding operations, but only once in the clean section of animals Powder River.

They are able to distinguish between human and animal genes of resistance to antibiotics, Pruden and his colleagues believe that they can "shed light on areas where intervention may be more effective to help reduce the spread of these contaminants in environmental matrices such as soil, groundwater, surface water and sediments."

"This study advances the recognition of the genes for resistance to antibiotics as sources to affected communities, taking an important step in the identification of dominant processes spread and transport of the resistance genes to antibiotics."

Colorado water resources Research Institute and a USDA Agricultural Experiment Station funded study alongside NSF awards the Pruden.

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Source of the story:

The story above is reproduced (with drafting adaptations by staff at PharmaLive.com) materials provided by Virginia Tech, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Reference of the review:

Heather Storteboom, Mazdak Arabi, Jessica g. Davis, Barbara Crimi, Amy Pruden. Monitoring of the genes for resistance to antibiotics in the basin of the Platte River South to urban, agricultural, molecular signatures and pristine sources. Environmental Science & Technology, 2010; 44 (19): 7397 DOI: 10.1021/es101657s

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited for this.