Andres Marcoleta, a researcher from the University of Chile
who headed the study in the Science of the Total Environment journal in March,
said that these "superpowers" which evolved to resist extreme
conditions are contained in mobile DNA fragments that can easily be transferred
to other bacteria.
"We know that the soils of the Antarctic Peninsula, one
of the polar areas most impacted by melting ice, host a great diversity of
bacteria," Marcoleta said. "And that some of them constitute a
potential source of ancestral genes that confer resistance to
antibiotics."
Scientists from the University of Chile collected several
samples from the Antarctic Peninsula from 2017 to 2019.
"It is worth asking whether climate change could have
an impact on the occurrence of infectious diseases," Marcoleta said.
"In a possible scenario, these genes could leave this
reservoir and promote the emergence and proliferation of infectious
diseases."
Researchers found that the Pseudomonas bacteria, one of the
predominant bacteria groups in the Antarctic Peninsula, are not pathogenic but
can be a source of 'resistance genes', which are not stopped by common
disinfectants such as copper, chlorine or quaternary ammonium.
However, the other kind of bacteria they researched,
Polaromonas bacteria, does have the "potential to inactivate beta-lactam
type antibiotics, which are essential for the treatment of different
infections," said Marcoleta.