freshwater animals protect themselves from infections

 Animals acquire genes from bacteria that can produce antibiotics

A group of small, freshwater animals protect themselves from infections

using antibiotic recipes “stolen” from bacteria, according to a new study. 

crawling wheel-animals 

The tiny creatures are called bdelloid rotifers, which means ‘crawling wheel-animals’. 

They have a head, mouth, gut, muscles and nerves like other animals, though they are smaller than a hair’s breadth.

When fungal infection

 the study found, they switch on hundreds of genes that they acquired from bacteria and other microbes.

 Some of these genes produce resistance weapons, such as antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents, in the rotifers. 

 picking up DNA from their surroundings  

Prior research found that rotifers have been picking up DNA from their surroundings for millions of years, 

but the new study is the first to discover them using these genes against diseases. No other animals are known to “steal” genes from microbes on such a large scale.

 “This raises the potential that rotifers are producing novel antimicrobials that may be less toxic to animals, including humans, than those we develop from bacteria and fungi.”

Most of antibiotics are produced naturally by fungi and bacteria in the wild, and humans can make artificial versions to use as medicine. 

the study suggests that rotifers might be doing something similar. The scientists think that rotifers could give important clues in the hunt for drugs to treat human infections caused by bacteria or fungi.

 One problem with developing new drugs is that many antibiotic chemicals made by bacteria and fungi are poisonous or have side effects in animals.

source the hindu