What is "colistin"

n. (context medicine English) A polymixin antibiotic effective against a range of gram-negative bacteria

Colistin, also known as polymyxin E, is an antibiotic produced by certain strains of the bacteria Paenibacillus polymyxa. Colistin is a mixture of the cyclic polypeptides colistin A and B and belongs to the class of polypeptide antibiotics known as polymyxins. Colistin is effective against most Gram-negative bacilli.

Colistin is a decades-old drug that fell out of favor due to its nephrotoxicity. It remains one of the last-resort antibiotics for multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Acinetobacter. NDM-1 metallo-β-lactamase multidrug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae have also shown susceptibility to colistin.

Resistance to colistin is rare. The first colistin-resistance gene that is carried in a plasmid and can be transferred between bacterial strains was described in 2016. This plasmid-borne mcr-1 gene has since been isolated in China, Europe and the United States.