Microbiota 19 - October 2023

Dear readers,
Antibiotics. Life savers and microbiota disruptors. If we all agree that antibiotics are one of the major medical discovery of the 20th century, their excessive use has led to the emergence of multiple forms of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotics resistance, the next new pandemic? That’s what we believed. Reading the overview by Dr. Joseph Nesme, you will find out that antibiotic resistance is an ancient phenomenon in the environment existing long before the introduction of antibiotic molecules as therapeutic. Antibiotic resistance has been found in 30,000 years old Arctic permafrost. Amazing, right? The bad news is that horizontal gene transfer, population dynamics and co-selection accelerate emergence and dissemination of the resistome. By year 2050, more than 10 million death per year will be due to antibiotic resistance.