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Can Microplastics Spread Killer Bacteria?
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Plastic is everywhere. So are drug-resistant microbes.
What happens when the two team up?
A raft of new studies show that bacteria can grow well on plastics, especially on microplastics. Other studies show just how widespread microplastics are – they are found in every ocean and sea tested so far. The most startling studies show these tiny bits of plastics can also build up in the human body, including in the liver and brain.
Science is done piece by piece, study by study, with no single study painting the whole picture. Now a team at Boston University has added one piece to the puzzle, with a study demonstrating that drug-resistant bacteria grow well on microplastics.
Neila Gross, a PhD candidate at BU, helped lead the research. Her team confirmed that E. coli bacteria form mats known as biofilms especially well on microplastics. The team found that antibiotic-resistant bacteria grew better when they were grown on microplastics.
This raises a specter of billions of tiny pieces of plastic spreading drug-resistant bacteria around the world and being ingested and breathed in by animals from shellfish to marine mammals and, likely, people.
Listen as Neila chats with One World, One Health host Maggie Fox about how this happens and what it might mean for the spread of antimicrobial resistance.
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