The hedgehog can carry a fungus on its skin that naturally produces antibiotics. © Adobe Stock
Share this article on:
Posted on 11.01.2022
Antibiotics L A bacteria present on hedgehogs acquired resistance to an antibiotic in the 19th century.
The phenomenon of antibiotic resistance is not new. A study with Bernese participation in fact revealed in the hedgehog a bacterium which acquired resistance in the 19th century due to the presence of a fungus producing an antibiotic.
This bacteria resistant to methicillin – a commonly used antibiotic – thus appeared 200 years ago, well before the discovery of antibiotics, according to this research published in the journal Nature.
The international team, which included researchers from Denmark and the UK as well as Vincent Perreten, from the University of Bern, looked for the presence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in humans, cows, hedgehogs and d ‘other wild or productive animals. Over a thousand samples were analyzed.
So far cows were considered to be the main reservoir of MRSA having acquired a gene called mecC which gives them this resistance. It is moreover on this bovid that it was brought to light for the first time.
However, according to these results, most strains of mecC-MRSA do not come from cows, but from hedgehogs. It is in fact on the skin of this small mammal that they developed due to the presence of an antibiotic-producing fungus, Trichophyton erinacei.
The cow and other domestic animals then presumably acted as intermediate hosts, transmitting these resistant bacteria to humans, according to the authors. The emergence of this resistance is therefore not simply a modern phenomenon due to drugs, they stress.
They insist on the need for human and veterinary medicine to work hand in hand. There is in the animal world a very large reservoir of bacteria resistant to antibiotics that beg to infect farm animals, then humans, they warn. ATS