One of the ongoing challenges of treating bacterial infections is antibiotic resistance which commonly arises when patients do not take their full treatment of medication and hence allow bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics over time. To understand how to combat antibiotic resistance it is important to understand how the bacterial genome is evolving and changing in healthy individuals with no recent usage of antibiotics to provide a baseline. Using a functional cloning-based technique, DNA isolated from human microflora were cloned into expression vectors in Escherichia coli. Afterwards, antibiotics were applied as a screen. If a plasmid contained a gene insert that provided antibiotic resistance the cell survived and was selected on the plate. If the insert provided no resistance, the cell died and did not form a colony. Based on selection of cell colonies that survived, a better picture of genetic factors contributing to antibiotic resistance were pieced together. Most of the resistance genes that were identified were previously unknown. By using a functional cloning-based technique one is able to elucidate genes giving rise to antibiotic resistance to better understand treatment for bacterial infections.
