The Antibiotic That Stopped Working Yesterday
A single bacterial gene, first spotted in a Chinese pig farm, spreads across continents faster than any drug can catch it, quietly rendering our last-resort antibiotics useless. This episode follows that gene's journey to explain why the future of medicine may look more like the year nineteen twenty than twenty fifty.
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Colistin was sidelined for decades due to toxicity, making it a vital last-line defense against bacteria.
The mcr-one gene allows resistance to jump between different bacterial species through mobile genetic software called plasmids.
Low-dose colistin used in Chinese pig farming drove the natural selection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
China banned colistin as a growth promoter in twenty seventeen, leading to a decline in resistance frequency.
Resistance genes spread globally across fifty countries through manure, soil, and agricultural runoff.
Bacteria maintain genetic memory of resistance even after the specific antibiotic is no longer in use.
- 01Intro1 min
- 02The Last Line of Defense2 min
- 03The Pig Farm Laboratory2 min
- 04The Mechanics of the Jump2 min
- 05From Manure to the Bedside2 min
- 06Outro1 min
- Changes in colistin resistance and mcr-1 abundance ...
- New gene that makes common bacteria resistant to last-line ...
- MCR-1-carrying Shigella found in China
- Studies show spread of MCR-1 gene in China
- Study describes emergence, spread of MCR-1 gene
- Prevalence and Characteristic of Swine-Origin mcr-1 ...
- New colistin resistance gene identified in China | CIDRAP
- A Phage-Like IncY Plasmid Carrying the mcr-1 Gene in Escherichia coli from a Pig Farm in China | Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
- Changes in colistin resistance and mcr-1 abundance in ...
- Occurrence of mcr-encoded colistin resistance in Escherichia ...
- Molecular survey of mcr1 and mcr2 plasmid mediated ...
- Drug-resistant gene goes from pig farms to patients worldwide
- Transferable resistance to colistin: a new but old threat
- Mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance: From genetic ... - PMC
- The antibiotic resistance “mobilome”: searching for the link ...
- Antimicrobial resistance in humans, livestock and the wider environment | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Transmission of antimicrobial resistance from livestock agriculture to humans and from humans to animals (EN)
- Antibiotic resistance genes from livestock waste: occurrence, dissemination, and treatment - npj Clean Water
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