Antibiotic resistance: when our armament becomes obsolete
Keywords:
antibiotic resistance, bacteria, resistant genesAbstract
Practically we all have needed the administration of an antibiotic to recover from an infection. These substances have been so praised since the beginning of their discovery; with them our life expectancy has increased significantly and we could hardly imagine the course of humanity without them. However, not everything is hunky-dory and, in many cases, what were originally our allies are currently becoming non-useful against many bacterial species. This situation has been generated by some resistance mechanisms in bacteria, caused by the mutation of some of their genes and its transfer among them. If this trend continues and we do nothing about it, we will run out of weapons to defend ourselves against the microorganisms that affect us, returning to the conditions in which we were almost 70 years ago! with a lower life expectancy and high probabilities of suffering epidemics that in these days we can still control. In this article we provide a description of the situation, the mechanisms that cause resistance, as well as some World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations; all with the purpose to make conscience about the use of antibiotics with a clear fundament.
References
Alberts, B., Johnson, A., Lewis, J., Raff, M. y Walter, P. (2002). Molecular Biology of the Cell (4th ed.). Nueva York, NY: Garland Science.
Aminov, R. I. (2010). A brief history of the antibiotic era: Lessons learned and challenges for the future. Frontiers in Microbiology 1, 134. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2010.00134.
Baron, S. A., Diene, S. M. y Rolain, J. M. (2018). Human microbiomes and antibiotic resistance. Human Microbiome Journal, 10, diciembre 2018, 43-52 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.humic.2018.08.005.
Cabrera, C. E., Gómez, R. F. y Zúñiga, A. E. (2007). La resistencia de bacterias a antibióticos, antisépticos y desinfectantes una manifestación de los mecanismos de supervivencia y adaptación. Colombia Médica, 38(2), abril-junio. Recuperado de: http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/cm/v38n2/v38n2a07.pdf.
Fleming, Alexander (1929). On the antibacterial action of cultures of a Penicillium, with special reference to their use in the isolation of B. influenzae. Reviews of Infectious Diseases, 2(1), 129-139. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/clinids/2.1.129.
Fleming, Alexander (1945). Penicillin [Nobel Lecture]. Recuperado de: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/fleming-lecture.pdf.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). (2017). Antimicrobial resistance in food and agriculture. Recuperdado de: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i7138e.pdf.
Gérvas, J. (2000). La resistencia a los antibióticos, un problema de salud pública. Atención Primaria, 25(8), 589–596.
Kardos, N. y Demain, A. L. (2013). Ernst Chain: A great man of science. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 97(15), 6613–6622. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-013-5017-4.
Katzung, B. G. (2015). Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (14a ed.). Nueva York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education/Medical.
Lloyd, N. C., Morgan, H. W., Nicholson, B. K. y Ronimus, R. S. (2005). The composition of Ehrlich’s Salvarsan: Resolution of a century-old debate. Angew. Chem. Int., 44, 941–944. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.200461471.
Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) (2018). Resistencia a los antibióticos. Recuperado de: https://www.who.int/es/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/resistencia-a-los-antibi%C3%B3ticos.
Oromí, J. (2014). Resistencia bacteriana a los antibióticos [editorial]. Medicina Integral, 36(10). Recuperado de: https://www.elsevier.es/es-revista-medicina-integral-63-articulo-resistencia-bacteriana-los-antibioticos-10022180.
Peet, N. P. (2010). Drug resistance: a growing problem. Drug Discovery Today, 15 (15–16), 583-586. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2010.04.002.
Saga, T. y Yamaguchi, K. (2009). History of antimicrobial agents and resistant bacteria. Japan Medical Association Journal, 52(2), 103-108. Recuperado de: http://www.med.or.jp/english/pdf/2009_02/103_108.pdf.
Sánchez, P., Muñoz, R. y Gutiérrez, N. (2012). Resistencia bacteriana a los antibióticos: mecanismos de transferencia. Spei Domus, 8(17), 31-37. Recuperado de: https://revistas.ucc.edu.co/index.php/sp/article/view/94.
Tafur, D. y Villegas, V. (2008). Mecanismos de resistencia a los antibióticos en bacterias Gram negativas. Asociación Colombiana de Infectología, 12(3), 217-226. Recuperado de: http://www.sld.cu/galerias/pdf/sitios/apua-cuba/mecanismos_de_resistencia_a_los_antibioticos_en_bacterias_gram_negativas.pdf.
Ventola, C. L. (2015). The antibiotic resistance crisis: part 1: causes and threats. P & T: a peer-reviewed journal for formulary management, 40(4), 277–283. Recuperado de: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4378521/.
Vergara, D. M., Ferrer, I. C., Ortega Annló, E. y González Sánchez, M. E. (2014). Probióticos: más allá de la salud intestinal. Nutr Hosp., 30(Supl. 2), 63-67.
von Wintersdorff, C. J. H., Penders, J., van Niekerk, J. M., Mills, N. D., Majumder, S., van Alphen, L. B., … Wolffs, P. F. G. (2016). Dissemination of Antimicrobial Resistance in Microbial Ecosystems through Horizontal Gene Transfer. Frontiers in Microbiology, 7, 173. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2016.00173.
World Health Organization. (2017). Antibacterial agents in clinical development: an analysis of the antibacterial clinical development pipeline. Recuperado de: https://www.who.int/medicines/areas/rational_use/antibacterial_agents_clinical_development/en/.
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Revista Digital Universitaria es editada por la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México se distribuye bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional. Basada en una obra en http://revista.unam.mx/.
