Bacteria with antibiotic resistant genes discovered in Antarctica

Bacteria in Antarctica have been discovered with genes that give them natural antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance and have the potential to spread out of the polar regions, according to scientists in Chile.

Andres Marcoleta, a researcher from the University of Chile who headed the study published in the Science of the Total Environment journal in March, said that these "superpowers" which evolved to resist extreme conditions are contained in mobile DNA fragments that can easily be transferred to other bacteria.

Researchers found that the Pseudomonas bacteria, one of the predominant bacteria groups in the Antarctic Peninsula, are not pathogenic but can be a source of 'resistance genes', which are not stopped by common disinfectants such as copper, chlorine, or quaternary ammonium.

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However, the other kind of bacteria they researched, Polaromonas bacteria, does have the potential to inactivate beta-lactam type antibiotics, which are essential for the treatment of different infections, according to Marcoleta.

"(We found) antibiotic resistance and other types of resistance, such as metals or disinfectants such as quaternary ammonium or chlorine. We found that all the genetic information present in these bacteria that confer these hyper-resistance properties could be a potential source of resistance mechanisms that can be transferred to disease-causing bacteria," Marcoleta said.

Scientists from the University of Chile collected several samples from the Antarctic Peninsula from 2017 to 2019.

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