Bacterial monopolists: the bundling and dissemination of antimicrobial resistance genes in gram-positive bacteria.
Antibiotic resistance is the unavoidable result of our placing selective pressure on the microbial community. Advances in molecular biology techniques in the past 2 decades have allowed us to greatly improve our understanding of the mechanisms by which resistance emerges and disseminates among human pathogenic bacteria. Gram-positive bacteria employ a diverse array of elements, including plasmids, transposons, insertion sequences, and bacteriophages, to disseminate resistance. An understanding of these mechanisms and their prevalence can improve our ability to treat clinical infections in hospitalized patients, as well as to predict and control the spread of resistant bacteria in the nosocomial environment.
Rice
L B
LB
Medical Service, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the Department of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA. louis.rice@med.va.gov
D003227:Conjugation, Genetic; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics*; D004352:Drug Resistance, Microbial / Q000235:genetics*; D018432:Drug Resistance, Multiple / Q000235:genetics; D005798:Genes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D006094:Gram-Positive Bacteria / Q000235:genetics
D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004269:DNA, Bacterial