Team Tracks Antibiotic Resistance From Swine Farms To Groundwater

The routine use of antibiotics in swine production can have unintended consequences, with antibiotic resistance genes sometimes leaking from waste lagoons into groundwater. In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois report that some genes found in hog waste lagoons are transferred - "like batons" - from one bacterial species to another. The researchers found that this migration across species and into new environments sometimes dilutes - and sometimes amplifies - genes conferring antibiotic resistance.

The new report, in the August issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, tracks the passage of tetracycline resistance genes from hog waste lagoons into groundwater wells at two Illinois swine facilities.

This is the first study to take a broad sample of tetracycline resistance genes in a landscape dominated by hog farming, said principal investigator R.I. Mackie. And it is one of the first to survey the genes directly rather than focusing on the organisms that host them. Mackie is a professor in the department of animal sciences and an affiliate of the Institute for Genomic Biology.
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