A new study shows that a type of antibiotic-resistantbacteria was created by an evolutionary battle between the two types ofbacteria on the skin of hedgehogs.
The superbug MRSA was traced to a fungus found on the skin of European hedgehogs.
The research team reported in a new study that Staphylococcus aureus evolved antibiotic resistance that later crossed into livestock and humans, because the fungus gave antibiotics to fight and kill them.
The study shows the origins of some antibiotic-resistantbacteria in nature, and it shows that the use of antibiotics often drives the evolution of superbugs.
"We know the resistance genes got into pathogen genomes before humans were using antibiotics, but this really describes a mechanism of how that might happen," study co-author Ewan Harrison told Live Science.
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If MRSA gets into the body of humans or livestock, it can cause disease, making it harder to treat. According to a statement released by the University of Cambridge, the researchers investigated mecC-MRSA, a relatively rare form of the superbug that is responsible for about 1 in 200 human MRSA infections.
The mecC-MRSA was found in cows that had been given large amounts of antibiotics. Up to 60 percent of European hedgehogs carry it, according to previous research. The penicillin antibiotics created by the Trichophyton erinacei are natural.
Harrison was part of an international research team that discovered the genes that make penicillin, which is used to kill staphbacteria.
The number of certain mutations in the genome that are known to occur at a fixed rate each year is what they used to date the penicillin-resistant genes.
They found that the resistance to methicillin was found in the 1800s.
The researchers don't know how mecC-MRSA got into humans, but they think it probably first evolved in hedgehogs.
Harrison said that animals like hedgehogs and other wildlife have a lot more contact with soil than most of us do.
The authors said that the superbug could have jumped to humans from the animals. Harrison said that people shouldn't fear the animals for this reason.
Harrison doesn't think that hedgehogs are a risk. I think it's important to get across. The mecC-MRSA is found in livestock, so these animals, or another unidentified animal, may have been an interference.
It shows that evolution can pick for antibiotic resistance and that can lead to a human pathogen.
The researchers believe that the use of antibiotics was a pressure on the resistance in some MRSA cases.
William Keevil, a professor of environmental health care at the University ofSouthampton who was not involved in the study, welcomed the new research.
"I believe it to be an important study and another example of the evolutionary war and adaptation of environmentalbacteria to survive in the presence of antibiotic-produced fungi, which has been occurring for hundreds of millions of years before the emergence of mammals and the antibiotic era," Keevil told Live Science.
The findings were published in the journal Nature.
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The article was published by Live Science. The original article can be found here.
