Soil microbes harbor nasty antibiotic resistance genes  Aug. 30,
2012 at 4:51 PM ET  By Wynne Parry, LiveScience   Bacteria that
live in the soil seem to be swapping antibiotic-resistance genes
with other, more dangerous bacteria ? the ones that cause
devastating infections in humans, a new study indicates.  When a
team of researchers analyzed bacteria they had grown from soil
samples, they found the microbes were harboring seven genes
identical to those that enabled harmful bacteria to resist
antibiotics. These genes are active against antibiotics within
five major drug classes, they write.  It is highly unlikely
these genes evolved independently in the soil microbes and the
disease-causing ones, they concluded.  "The sequences of the
resistance genes are identical, but they are in organisms that
are very, very different, so we know they have been shared
between these organisms," said study researcher Kevin Forsberg,
of Washington University School of Medicine, in an audio
interview released by the journal S