IJAA Editor's Choice

Two articles have been selected as 'Editor's Choice' for the October issue of IJAA.

1. Fosfomycin for Bacterial Prostatitis: A Review (Kwan and Beahm)

Editor's comment:

Facing the spread of antimicrobial resistance, mostly in Gram negative bacteria, old antibiotics represents a true hope for the treatment of infections caused by multidrug resistant bacteria because they have been unemployed for years and could be of great interest in specific situations such as bacterial prostatitis. Fosfomycin is a well-known antibiotic with low toxicity that have been mostly used in uncomplicated urinary tract infections in women. First studied in the treatment of multidrug resistance infection, recent studies have suggested to use it for the treatment of bacterial prostatitis, independently of the antimicrobial resistance level of the bacteria. due to its activity on Escherichia coli and its tropism for prostate although studies on this topic remain scarce. In this work, Kwan et al. reviewed the current knowledge on the use of fosfomycin in bacterial prostatitis. They highlighted the lack of clinical evidence in literature but showed that fosfomycin appeared safe and effective in reported cases. This work summarizes existing data and calls for randomized controlled trials. This work will add to the current armamentarium to treat such infections although emergence of resistance to this drug should be surveyed in the future.
 
2. New insights concerning Acinetobacter genomic island -related elements (Siebor and Neewirth)

Editor's comment:

In this work, Siebor et al. have investigated the role of the genomic island AGI1, firstly described in an Acinetobacter baumannii, in multidrug resistance. They used genome database available on NCBI to evaluate the distribution of this genomic island in Gammaproteobacteria and demonstrated its transferability into the Enterobacterales group. AGI1 variants were mostly found in Salmonella enterica and Vibrio cholerae and rarely in A. baumannii, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli. The structural analysis of this genomic island identified five groups (AGI-1 to AGI-5) suggesting more sequential acquisitions of closely related genomic islands rather than an evolution from a common ancestor. The origin of these transferable elements, due to their ability to evolve and adapt in different bacterial species is complex and paved the way to further works to try to identify the putative sources of this mobile element.