The discovery of antibiotics is one of the greatest advances in medicine, as it has enabled the effective treatment of infections caused by pathogenic bacteria. However, these compounds have been losing effectiveness due to the spread of genes that confer resistance to antibiotics among bacterial cells. Bacteria present various mechanisms to cope with antibiotic exposure, which they frequently acquire through lateral transfer of resistance genes by means of mobile genetic elements, such as plasmids.
Click here for original story, Method for quantifying the spread of bacterial resistance to antibiotics developed
Source: Phys.org