But surely they haven't ruled out the possibility of resistant bacteria being part of the original sample.
Gee, I would have said "surely they
have ruled out ...". Scientists are invariably curious, and have a marked propensity for digging into things to
find out.
Crash's reply is right on the money. It's also quite common to identify the exact changes.
I hesitate to post the following link; it gives a good list of mutations identified as causing antibiotic resistance in bacteria, but the characterizations of those mutations and the conclusions are a mishmash of non-sequiturs and egregious errors. But I'll post it anyway, as long as it's understood that the conclusions are not to be trusted:
Is Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics an Appropriate Example of Evolutionary Change?.
See also
The isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase mutation V588F conferring mupirocin resistance in glycopeptide-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus is not associated with a significant fitness burden (which directly contradicts one of the conclusions of the first link),
Mutations Affecting DNA-Binding Activity of the MexR Repressor of mexR-mexA-mexB-oprM Operon Expression, and
Diversity of -Lactam Resistance-Conferring Amino Acid Substitutions in Penicillin-Binding Protein 3 of Haemophilus influenzae.
{Broke the links down into their own "paragraphs" - Adminnemooseus}
This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 04-12-2005 09:46 PM
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