A university research team from Scotland recently discovered a bacteria that has mutated and gained the ability to jump from humans to rabbits. The scientists traced the evolution of a specific bacterium that causes skin infections in rabbits: Staphylococcus aureus (ST121). Strangely enough, ST121 has been found in some humans as well and although it's relatively harmless, it can sometimes lead to meningitis or sepsis.
This similarity allowed the scientists to track the evolution of the pathogen and discover that the rabbit-specific ST121 bacteria evolved from the human-specific version over 40 years ago and mutated enough to be able to jump from humans to rabbits. One genetic mutation allowed this to happen. One naturally occurring genetic mutation was enough to completely change the bacteria and let it change host species. The fact that a genetic mutation this small can alter a pathogen so much brings up a lot of questions and a lot of places where more studies can be done to see what other bacteria, if any, may be able to jump so easily from another species to humans or vice versa. This could also pose a problem for industrial animal businesses that keep many different species of animals in close quarters.
I think this is a very interesting topic because it's bizarre; a human probably wouldn't expect to get an infection from a rabbit. I also think it's interesting how only one genetic mutation allowed the bacteria to do this. Scientists know little about bacteria and viruses because they are all so complex and there are many variations of them so scientists may never learn everything there is to know about their makeups. It's important that scientists research this in more detail with other species of animals if they ever want to help slow or stop the spread of these species-hopping pathogens for peoples' and animals' sake.
The topic of zoonosis is interesting, because normally we are focused on diseases within a species. However, the fact there is a possibility of transmitting disease from one species to another puts need to look more in depth at how and why this occurs. The Ebola virus is another example of modern day disease that affects humans and primates, and is thought to originate from bats, though this is not totally confirmed.
ReplyDeleteSo is this article just explaining that this certain STRAIN of staph went from being a human-based bacteria to a rabbit-based? Because working in the animal field, I have yet to see any form of bacteria that care what they decide to grow on. I actually had MRSA (I was in the hospital for 4 days), and I have seen several post-op patients get anything rom from MRSA (which means staph aureus), to E. coli in their incisions, and then had to be put into isolation to prevent contamination in their homes to people and other animals.
ReplyDeleteSaying that staph is species specific is silly... so I was just wondering if this is just saying this certain strain prefers rabbits as their fomite instead of people.