Million year old bugs show antibiotic resistance

Scientists have found a superbug — hidden 1,000 feet underground in a cave — which is resistant to 70 percent of antibiotics and can totally inactivate many of them. But here's the kicker. This bacterium has been isolated from people, society — and drugs — for 4 million years, scientists report Thursday in the journal Nature Communications. That means it hasn't been exposed to human drugs in a clinic or on a farm that uses them. But it has the machinery to knock out these drugs. And that machinery has been around for millions of years. Because, Barton says, the bacterium is helping scientists understand where antibiotic resistance comes from and, hopefully, new ways to stop it. And the bacterium — called Paenibacillus (pronounced "penny-bacillus") — isn't pathogenic. It won't hurt you. It's just capable of evading many, many antibiotics.So how on Earth did this underground bacteria become resistance to human antibiotics? Don't bacteria develop resistance after being exposed to the drugs in people and animals?"That's kind of the old model," Barton says. "When we originally went into this cave in 2012, we found that the microbes there were resistant to every natural antibiotic that we use in hospitals."It changed our understanding because it means antibiotic resistance didn't evolve in the clinic through our use. The resistance is hardwired," she says.