Molecular background of the antibiotic resistance and virulence of enteric bacteria of environmental origin
Informations
- Funding country
Hungary- Acronym
- -
- URL
- -
- Start date
- 7/1/2007
- End date
- 6/30/2010
- Budget
- 29,007 EUR
Fundings
| Name | Role | Start | End | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thematic Programme | Grant | 7/1/2007 | 6/30/2010 | 29,007 EUR |
Abstract
Beyond the selective pressure resulting from the antibiotic therapy several factors influence the spread of resistance. Apathogenic organisms become resistant due to mutations or to uptake of genes via horizontal gene transfer and thus become part of the resistance gene-pool. Furthermore, there is a bi-directional traffic of all of these organisms between the environment and the susceptible host. Consequently, studying only the resistance of pathogens recovered from patients will limit our knowledge on the incidence and dynamics of the spread of resistance genes. Furthermore, environmental microorganisms are less exposed to the selective pressure for virulence and for resistance that their counterparts in the host. This provides a unique opportunity to study the relationship between virulence-, and resistance genes. Our goal is to investigate the incidence, linkage to multi drug resistance, the molecular background and transferability of beta-lactam and fluoroquinolone resistance in enteric bacteria collected from some 160 environmental samples (surface waters, sludge, soil). Furthermore, in case of 100 E. coli isolates, these investigations will be extended to study the presence of a broad array of virulence genes of intestinal and extraintestinal pathogenic strains. It is anticipated that these results will contribute to the development of more accurate antibiotic resistance monitoring systems, as well as to a better understanding of the relationship between virulence and antibiotic resistance.