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27 August 2024 Antibiotic-producing bacteria isolated from the giant sand scorpion, Smeringurus mesaensis (Scorpiones: Vaejovidae)
Lauren Atkinson, Christopher Shimwell, Kurt M. Lucin, Matthew R. Graham, Barbara Murdoch
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Antibiotic resistance is a global health crisis. Our current arsenal of antibiotics—drugs meant to kill bacteria and stop their population growth—is becoming less effective at treating bacterial infections as resistant bacteria emerge, fueling the dire need to discover new antibiotics. Most antibiotics in use today have been discovered from bacteria. To increase the chances of finding potentially novel antibiotic molecules, we studied the relatively unexplored microbial environment of scorpion tissues, using the giant sand scorpion, Smeringurus mesaensis (Stahnke, 1957). Bacterial symbionts were isolated and cultured from the mesosoma and metasoma, and isolates were tested in a functional assay for production of antibiotics. Under the culture conditions utilized, most scorpion-derived bacteria were from the phyla of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria. Fifty-five percent of the clonal isolates tested produced antibiotics, with most being Bacillus species. None of the bacterial conditioned media were cytotoxic to mammalian cells. This study suggests scorpion tissues may provide a rich source of antimicrobial molecules to help combat the antibiotic resistance crisis.

Lauren Atkinson, Christopher Shimwell, Kurt M. Lucin, Matthew R. Graham, and Barbara Murdoch "Antibiotic-producing bacteria isolated from the giant sand scorpion, Smeringurus mesaensis (Scorpiones: Vaejovidae)," The Journal of Arachnology 52(2), 116-126, (27 August 2024). https://doi.org/10.1636/JoA-S-22-039
Received: 26 June 2022; Accepted: 14 April 2023; Published: 27 August 2024
KEYWORDS
arachnid
culture
microbiome
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