(Photo credits: Mark Green) The world is running out of usable antibiotics and the search for new antibiotics has been ongoing for more than a decade. Perhaps one of the potential candidates for new antibiotics comes from one of the most unexpected places, in leafcutter ants.
Leafcutter ants are famous for their unique leaf-cutting habits, they use the collected plant matter as a substrate in the growing of fungus to feed the colony. In the growing of this fungus, the ants keep the fungus free of molds and other fungus using an antibiotic produced by the bacteria, actinomycetes spp. The actinomycetes bacteria is found on the bodies of the leafcutter ants. A limitation is that when the actinomycetes bacteria produce these antibiotics they express resistance genes, to protect them against the antibiotic's toxic effects.Unfortunately, these resistance genes have been exposed to other pathogens, causing antibiotic-resistant strains to evolve which current antibiotics are unable to treat. Despite the limitations, these antibiotics may prove to be useful to people who are allergic to antibiotics from other sources such as penicillin. Actinomycetes has also proved to be a reliable source of antibiotics, selectively destroying pathogens without affecting the host tissues.
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