Vicious Circles : Looking Back on Resistance Plasmids Julian

D URING the past few years, the popular press has often made play with lurid articles describing the rise in appearance of “superbugs” and emphasizing the menace posed by multiply antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens, such as the Gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecalis. At medical conventions, infectious-diseases experts regale audiences with descriptions of their pet “Andromeda strain,” the drug-resistant bacterial species that causes the most serious and difficult-to-treat infections. Trends in Microbiology prepared a special issue entitled “Drug Resistance: The New Apocalypse?” TV and radio shows have echoed these grim stories that dramatize the end of the antibiotic era. What is not realized by the lay public is that these supposed exposes are reporting nothing new; they are simply describing the continuing manifestations of a phenomenon that was first evident in the 1950s and has increased ever since. The sad commentary is that so little has been done to try to avoid the problem. The rapid development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, now well recognized, first came as a series of events that evoked both surprise and disbelief. At the beginning of the antibiotic era in the early 1950s, microbial geneticists were more involved in discussions of the controversial topic of the mechanism of acquired antibiotic resistance in bacteria than in considerations of the clinical significance of this resistance. Many symposia and publications were concerned with hot debate on the subject of mutation us. adaptation in the generation of antibiotic-resistant phenotypes in bacteria. Resistance to antibiotics in bacterial pathogens during the course of treatment of infectious diseases was considered by bacterial geneticists to be an event of low probability, and the notion of multiple drug resistance was heretical. Although this period was the heyday of studies on the nature of bacterial conjugation and the role of the F factor in this process, it was considered unlikely, at the time, that sexual mechanisms would contribute to any extent in the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Coincidentally, however, in war-torn Japan, serious outbreaks of dysentery due to Shigella