Antibiotic-Resistant Gene Discovered in R. equi
Clostridium perfringens (type C) is a bacterium that causes severe diarrhea in horses and is one of the most common causes of neonatal diarrhea. | Photo: Anne M. Eberhardt/The Horse
A research team based at the University of Georgia (UGA) College of Veterinary Medicine has discovered a novel gene—erm(46)—that confers antibiotic resistance in Rhodococcus equi, a soil-dwelling bacterium that commonly infects foals and causes opportunistic infections in immunocompromised people.

The finding was made in collaboration with researchers at the University of Edinburgh, Texas A&M University, and the University of Washington.

R. equi, a Gram-positive intracellular pathogen, is one of the most important causes of disease in foals between 3 weeks and 5 months of age, said team leader Steeve Giguère, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, the Marguerite Thomas Hodgson Chair of Equine Studies at UGA and a board-certified large animal internal medicine specialist.

The researchers sequenced the genomes of antibiotic-resistant and antibiotic-susceptible R. equi isolates collected from foals in four states. They searched each isolate’s genome for genes with similar sequences to known genes that cause bacterial resistance to the macrolide class of antibiotics in other bacterial species. Through their search, they discovered the new gene, named erm(46) by the Nomenclature Center for MLS Genes at the University of Washington

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