"Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew that international travel was contributing to the rapid global increase and spread of antimicrobial resistance," said Alaric D'Souza, a doctoral student at the varsity. "But what's new here is that we've found numerous completely novel genes associated with antimicrobial resistance that suggest a worrisome problem on the horizon," D'Souza added. Advertisement In all, the researchers detected 121 antimicrobial resistance genes across the gut microbiomes. More than 40 per cent of these resistance genes were only discovered using the more sensitive metagenomics technique, suggesting that potentially dangerous genes are being missed by the more conventional approaches. The results also confirmed that 56 unique antimicrobial resistance genes had become part of the travellers' gut microbiomes during their trips abroad, including several mobiles, high-risk resistance genes, such as extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) and the plasmid-borne colistin resistance gene, mcr-1.

Source: The North Africa Journal June 08, 2021 09:22 UTC