Virulent bacterium’s DNA is sequenced
Bacteriologists have one more complete genome sequence in their grasp. This time, the deciphered DNA belongs to Staphylococcus aureus, one of the slipperiest infectious organisms to race through a hospital ward.
Besides its nasty habit of releasing toxins in its victims, the bacterium is “resistant to all antibiotics ever developed by humans,” says Keiichi Hiramatsu of Juntendo University in Tokyo, who reported the work with his colleagues in the April 21 Lancet.