“After many years considering that the resistance of bacteria to antibacterial agents is a problem in the treatment of infections, these finding raises important questions,” explained Villa.

Antibacterial resistance is a phenomenon intrinsically related to its introduction into clinical practice and the particular use of each compound. Fluoroquinolones are a class of broad spectrum antibacterial and represent the treatment of choice for a large number of infections of both human and animal origin. The resistance to these antibacterial agents is increasingly important among the clinical strains.
The next research step will be to demonstrate this relationship in animal models. According to Vila, “even though some experts raised the spread of these multiresistant but low virulence strains to fight infections, it is very complicated because it is also true that the resistant strains to fluoroquinolones have worse fitness than those who are sensitive.” An application that maybe we could get is “the replacement of sensitive and virulent strains of Salmonella and E. coli by resistant and low virulent ones in animals for human consumption so they could be transmitted but they could not to colonize the human epithelium”.
About Jordi Vila
Dr. Jordi Vila is head of the microbiology department of the Hospital Clínic, IDIBAPS researcher and professor of the Department of Pathology, Pharmacology and Microbiology at University of Barcelona. His team has focused on the study of the molecular basis of bacteria’s resistance to antibiotics and the development of drugs to combat this resistance. Recently, Vila has discovered a possible link between fluoroquinolone resistance and the expression of virulence factors in a mutant strain of Salmonella.

Since 2009 is Director of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) and since 2006 he is a member of the Scientific Program Committee of ICAAC. He has published over 200 articles.