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Saturday 21 May 2011

China investigating Canadian MRSA

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Horizontal Gene Transfer is complicated science but the Chinese in association with the Canadian McGill University have used Canadian samples or data and have been working on them.

Their conclusions support inter species transmission and mutation of MRSA: that's MRSA passing between different species of livestock and to and from humans.

These findings have important implications with regard to animal husbandry practices that may inadvertently enhance the contact of human and animal bacterial pathogens.”

If you wanted a perfect machine to transmit and mutate disease, you would adopt the North American integrator and pyramid system with some sleazy modifications introduced by Britain’s bent vets and their cronies. These husbandry systems are dangerous.

It's almost as if the systems were designed to give the maximum number of animal to animal, animal to humans and human to animal interactions.  They attempt to solve some of the resulting health problems with massive quantities of antibiotics. It does not work.

Animals constantly moving about between farms with veterinarians and so-called welfare inspectors travelling from farm to farm spreading and carrying MRSA. It’s nuts! It is not even profitable.

As senior pig veterinarians in Britain are beginning to admit, without accepting any blame, the producers cannot make money out of sick pigs.

It is the main reason why the pig industry in Britain complains it is in financial trouble. The Danes have long tackled the problems properly by, at least, reducing the use of antibiotics.

Danish pigs, although still with problems, are far more productive and profitable. Some British veterinarians have at last realised that the Danes will eventually seek to profit from lower rates of antibiotic use and less MRSA also by legitimately advertising their cheaper pork as also healthier - and in Britain, where they have a long established marketing machine and brands.

Forced by their government, Danish veterinarians have had to face up to their problems. It is inevitable that their farmers will use the advantages, that flow from a more regulated veterinary establishment, in marketing.

The message to British veterinarians is clear - don't kill off the pigs that have given you a good living for so long.


The full paper is available on the same url here – scroll down from the abstact.




Sequence Diversities of Serine-Aspartate Repeat Genes among Staphylococcus aureus Isolates from Different Hosts Presumably by Horizontal Gene Transfer

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is recognized as one of the major forces for bacterial genome evolution. Many clinically important bacteria may acquire virulence factors and antibiotic resistance through HGT. The comparative genomic analysis has become an important tool for identifying HGT in emerging pathogens. In this study, the Serine-Aspartate Repeat (Sdr) family has been compared among different sources of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) to discover sequence diversities within their genomes.

Four sdr genes were analyzed for 21 different S. aureus strains and 218 mastitis-associated S. aureus isolates from Canada. Comparative genomic analyses revealed that S. aureus strains from bovine mastitis (RF122 and mastitis isolates in this study), ovine mastitis (ED133), pig (ST398), chicken (ED98), and human methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) (TCH130, MRSA252, Mu3, Mu50, N315, 04-02981, JH1 and JH9) were highly associated with one another, presumably due to HGT. In addition, several types of insertion and deletion were found in sdr genes of many isolates. A new insertion sequence was found in mastitis isolates, which was presumably responsible for the HGT of sdrC gene among different strains. Moreover, the sdr genes could be used to type S. aureus. Regional difference of sdr genes distribution was also indicated among the tested S. aureus isolates. Finally, certain associations were found between sdr genes and subclinical or clinical mastitis isolates.

Certain sdr gene sequences were shared in S. aureus strains and isolates from different species presumably due to HGT. Our results also suggest that the distributional assay of virulence factors should detect the full sequences or full functional regions of these factors. The traditional assay using short conserved regions may not be accurate or credible. These findings have important implications with regard to animal husbandry practices that may inadvertently enhance the contact of human and animal bacterial pathogens.

Huping Xue1,2, Hong Lu2, Xin Zhao1*

1 Department of Animal Science, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2 State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Abstract Top

Conclusions

Certain sdr gene sequences were shared in S. aureus strains and isolates from different species presumably due to HGT. Our results also suggest that the distributional assay of virulence factors should detect the full sequences or full functional regions of these factors. The traditional assay using short conserved regions may not be accurate or credible. These findings have important implications with regard to animal husbandry practices that may inadvertently enhance the contact of human and animal bacterial pathogens.