Laura M. Carroll1, Ahmed Gaballa1, Claudia Guldimann2, Genevieve Sullivan1, Lory O. Henderson1,3, Martin Wiedmann1
1Department of Food Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
2Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
3Department of Microbiology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
Tóm tắt
Colistin is a last-resort antibiotic that is used to treat severe infections caused by MDR and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) bacteria. The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated colistin as a “highest priority critically important antimicrobial for human medicine” (WHO,
Critically Important Antimicrobials for Human Medicine
,
5th revision
, 2017,
https://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/antimicrobials-fifth/en/
), as it is often one of the only therapies available for treating serious bacterial infections in critically ill patients. Plasmid-borne
mcr
genes that confer resistance to colistin pose a threat to public health at an international scale, as they can be transmitted via horizontal gene transfer and have the potential to spread globally. Therefore, the establishment of a complete reference of
mcr
genes that can be used to screen for plasmid-mediated colistin resistance is essential for developing effective control strategies.
