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Forget the MRSA and E. colithere is another bacterium that is becoming more and more dangerous because of antibiotic resistance – and it is present on the skin of every person on the planet.
A close relative of MRSA, Staphylococcus epidermidis, is a major cause of life-threatening infections after surgery, but clinicians and scientists often ignore it because of its abundance.
Researchers at the Milner Center for Evolution of the University of Bath have warned that the threat posed by this organism should be taken more seriously and imposed extra precautions on people at higher risk of infection who must undergo surgical intervention.
They have identified a set of 61 genes that allow this normally harmless skin bacterium to cause a life-threatening disease.
They hope that, by understanding why some strains of S. epidermidis cause illness in certain circumstances, they could in the future identify the patients most at risk of infection before undergoing surgery.
They took samples from patients with infections after hip or knee joint replacement and fracture fixation operations and compared them to samples taken from the skin healthy volunteers.
They compared genetic variation across the entire genome of bacteria found in samples of sick and healthy individuals. From that, they identified 61 genes in the disease causing bacterium that were not present in most healthy samples.
Surprisingly, though, there were a small number of healthy people who carried the deadliest form of the bacteria without knowing it.
It was discovered that the genes responsible for the disease helped the bacteria to grow in the blood, avoided the host's immune response, made the surface of the cell sticky so that the organisms could form biofilms and make the antibiotic resistant virus.
The team published its study in Nature Communications this week.
Professor Sam Sheppard, director of bioinformatics at the Milner Center for Evolution at the University of Bath, led the research. He said: "Staphlococcus epidermidis is a deadly pathogen in the public eye.
"It has always been ignored clinically because it was often badumed that it was a contaminant in laboratory samples or that it was simply considered a known risk of surgery.
"Post-operative infections can be extremely serious and deadly, with infections accounting for almost a third of deaths in the UK, so I think we should do more to reduce the risks if possible.
"If we can identify the people most at risk of infection, we can target patients with extra hygienic precautions before undergoing surgery."
He added: "Since the virus is very abundant, it can evolve very quickly by exchanging genes with each other.
"If we do not do anything to control this, there is a risk that these genes responsible for the disease will spread more widely, which means that postoperative antibiotic-resistant infections may become even more common."
Professor Dietrich Mack, of the Bioscientia Institute for Medical Diagnostics GmbH, Germany, said: "Prosthetic joint replacement surgery helps many patients to lead an independent and pain free life, but can to follow a catastrophic course S. epidermidis infection.
"These infections are difficult to diagnose and it is hoped that disease-related genes may help to separate harmless skin isolates from S. epidermidis strains in the clinical laboratory. This needs to be addressed in future studies. "
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Material provided by University of Bath. Note: Content can be changed for style and length.
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