Antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the guts of insects feeding on plants: prospects for discovering plant-derived antibiotics.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Although plants produce many secondary metabolites, currently none of these are commercial antibiotics. Insects feeding on specific plants can harbour bacterial strains resistant to known antibiotics suggesting that compounds in the plant have stimulated resistance development. We sought to determine whether the occurrence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in insect guts was a widespread phenomenon, and whether this could be used as a part of a strategy to identify antibacterial compounds from plants.

Results

Six insect/plant pairs were selected and the insect gut bacteria were identified and assessed for antibiotic susceptibilities compared with type strains from culture collections. We found that the gut strains could be more or less susceptible to antibiotics th

SUBMITTER: Ignasiak K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5709835 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature