Page 2 - Foundation for Water Research Winter Newsletter 2020

Star Trek’s Next Generation creation
‘The Borg’ offers a useful analogy.
These cybernetic alien organisms share
knowledge with all members of ‘the
collective’, creating a ‘hive mind’ – which
is to say, knowledge held by one is held
by all. Such a capacity makes The Borg
among the most formidable opponents
in the Star Trek universe. A rapidly
adapting enemy with a ‘hive mind’ is
the ultimate foe – Borg and bacteria
alike! It comes with some consolation to
know that a minuscule fraction of all the
known bacteria are human pathogens.
Unfortunately, the concept of the ‘hive
mind’ (ie HGT) arguably applies to all
Penicillin growth
bacteria – so, those friendly gut bacteria
much higher than the risk of contracting could still share the DNA that is key
a drug-resistant infection. ‘THE HIVE MIND’ to surviving antibiotic exposure with
a pathogen, making life much more
Major components of our diet have become It has been clear since the use of difficult for everyone.
dependent on the use of antimicrobials: sulphonamides in the 1930s that bacterial
azole fungicides to treat fungal disease resistance to antibiotics can be intrinsic LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
on cereal crops; oxytetracycline and to a bacterial species or acquired (from
streptomycin antibiotics to treat bacterial other bacteria). Intrinsic resistance is The successful spread of resistance
infections in citrus; and, most notably, when a genus of bacteria is naturally genes across the globe is limited in many
antibiotics in food animal production. Much resistant to an antibiotic – in much the ways, no more so than by the constraint
of the world’s food animals are grown in same way that all humans are born with of finding the right host. One of the
conditions of poor sanitation and hygiene, the ability to breathe oxygen from the ‘best’ hosts for an antibiotic resistance
made worse by unhealthy herd densities, air. Acquired resistance refers to the gene is within a human gut bacteria.
all of which feeds into the cycle of reliance observation that bacteria can rapidly Thanks to cheap flights, globalisation,
upon antibacterials to maintain animal evolve ways of surviving antibiotic migration, and package holidays, a novel
health. Antibacterials and antiparasitics (eg exposure through mutation of their DNA antibacterial resistant gut bacteria in
to treat sea lice) are also very heavily used or, more importantly, can receive these South East Asia can be in the United
in aquaculture and can have a direct impact genes that provide protection to an Kingdom in seven hours. Within minutes
on aquatic life and bacterial and parasite antibacterial from another bacterium. it can be flushed down the toilet at
resistance selection in river and coastal This transfer of life-saving ‘knowledge’
ecosystems. from one bacterium to another (termed
horizontal gene transfer (HGT)), is the
equivalent of a human acquiring the
DNA to allow one to breathe underwater.
Inconceivable for a human, but
commonplace for bacteria!

HGT is arguably the most important
phenomenon for the survival of bacteria
on earth, second only to the evolutionary
role that DNA mutation plays. HGT
ensures that when a bacterium
successfully evolves in the face of a
chemical challenge, it can spread from
bacteria to bacteria, globally – forever! Luciano Cosmo/Shutterstock.com

www.fwr.org 2 Issue 1 February 2020