Greetings
What I have read this week on antibiotic resistance has caused me to discard all that I thought I knew about it.

> The presence of antibiotic resistance elements in pathogenic bacteria is made all the more problematic because of the prevalence of horizontal gene transfer, the process by which bacteria acquire genes from the environment. Many of the known antibiotic resistance genes are found on transposons, integrons or plasmids, which can be mobilized and transferred to other bacteria of the same or different species. There is evidence of the transfer of resistance elements to known human commensal bacteria and pathogens, and gene transfer in the human intestinal microbiome is extensive. What are the sources and reservoirs of these transferable genes? A full understanding of the pressures and circumstances that lead to the evolution and dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes in pathogens is impossible without a detailed examination of the origin and role of resistance genes in natural environments. -- Call of the wild: antibiotic resistance genes in natural environments. Heather K. Allen, et al.

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