U.S. researchers find way to defeat antibiotic-resistant bacteria

2013-03-16

HOUSTON, March 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. researchers have "cured" a strain of bacteria of its ability to resist an antibiotic, in a development that has promising implications for a long-standing public health threat, a medical newspaper reported Friday.

Researchers from Rice University in Houston managed to prevent the Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria from resisting the antibiotic medication tetracycline by limiting the bacteria's access to food and oxygen, according to the online edition of Texas Medical Center News.

Pedro Alvarez, chair of the civil and environmental engineering department at Rice University, observed the starving bacteria across 120 generations, and found that in every case the starving bacteria chose to conserve energy rather than use its energy to pass on plasmid -- the small genetic element responsible for drug resistance.
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Continued:  http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/health/2013-03/16/c_132237976.htm