The Spread of a Drug-resistance Gene Case Study
Work type: Essay (any type)
Format: APA
Pages: 2 pages ( 550 words, Double spaced
Academic level: Undergraduate. (yrs 3-4)
Subject or discipline: Biology (and other Life Sciences)
Title: Case Study: The Spread of a Drug-resistance Gene
Number of sources: 2
Paper instructions:
A 500-750 word essay answering the following 4 questions based on background and two reference diagram and table attached under ‘additional materials’
BACKGROUND:
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A Rhode Island resident (patient 1) travelled to Cambodia, where she was diagnosed with spinal cord compression and was hospitalized from December 20 to 30. She had an indwelling catheter placed during her medical care and was given multiple antibiotics. On January 6, she returned to Rhode Island and was hospitalized for lymphoma. She underwent chemotherapy and required prolonged bladder catheterization and was given more than 20 different antibiotics during her treatment. On March 4, a urine culture grew carbapenemase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae containing the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM) gene.
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1. How does antibiotic therapy reveal the presence of drug-resistant bacteria?
(Figure a) attached.
a. A plasmid showing the NDM gene and clusters of drug resistance genes
2. How did some Klebsiella bacteria probably acquire the NDM gene and the multidrug resistance characteristic shown in the diagram?
3. What does the abundant amount of insertion sequences imply about the how the plasmid acquired the many other drug-resistance genes?
Table Figure b ( attached) – Those who potentially had direct contact with patient 1 were screened to determine who also had contact with patient 2 (Figure b).
4. Based on the information in the table fig b attached) propose a theory on how the NDM gene was spread in the hospital.
