A four billion year head start

A recent article in Nature confirms that the sound you hear, late at night, when all else is quiet….is the sound of bacteria laughing…laughing at the idea that humans can win the antimicrobial resistance battle. An excerpt from the abstract describes their findings after isolating ancient bacterial DNA from Canadian permafrost:

“We report targeted metagenomic analyses of rigorously authenticated ancient DNA from 30,000-year-old Beringian permafrost sediments and the identification of a highly diverse collection of genes encoding resistance to β-lactam, tetracycline and glycopeptide antibiotics. Structure and function studies on the complete vancomycin resistance element VanA confirmed its similarity to modern variants. These results show conclusively that antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon that predates the modern selective pressure of clinical antibiotic use.”

Pulling out antibiotics that bacteria could defend against 30,000 years ago is kind of like….bringing a sword to gun battle.