Selection of resistant bacteria at very low antibiotic concentrations.
Erik Gullberg,Sha Cao,Otto G. Berg,Carolina Ilbäck,Linus Sandegren,Diarmaid Hughes,Dan I. Andersson +6 more
TLDR
It is suggested that the low antibiotic concentrations found in many natural environments are important for enrichment and maintenance of resistance in bacterial populations.Abstract:
The widespread use of antibiotics is selecting for a variety of resistance mechanisms that seriously challenge our ability to treat bacterial infections. Resistant bacteria can be selected at the high concentrations of antibiotics used therapeutically, but what role the much lower antibiotic concentrations present in many environments plays in selection remains largely unclear. Here we show using highly sensitive competition experiments that selection of resistant bacteria occurs at extremely low antibiotic concentrations. Thus, for three clinically important antibiotics, drug concentrations up to several hundred-fold below the minimal inhibitory concentration of susceptible bacteria could enrich for resistant bacteria, even when present at a very low initial fraction. We also show that de novo mutants can be selected at sub-MIC concentrations of antibiotics, and we provide a mathematical model predicting how rapidly such mutants would take over in a susceptible population. These results add another dimension to the evolution of resistance and suggest that the low antibiotic concentrations found in many natural environments are important for enrichment and maintenance of resistance in bacterial populations.read more
Citations
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Effect of Environment on the Evolutionary Trajectories and Growth Characteristics of Antibiotic-Resistant Escherichia coli Mutants.
Alasdair T. M. Hubbard,Nazila V. Jafari,Nicholas A. Feasey,Nicholas A. Feasey,Jennifer L. Rohn,Adam P. Roberts +5 more
TL;DR: A preliminary study uses Escherichia coli and amoxicillin–clavulanic acid resistance as a model to understand how the artificial environments utilized in studies of bacterial fitness could affect the emergence of resistance and associated fitness costs and highlights the importance of developing comprehensive experimental designs to ensure effective translation of diagnostic procedures to successful clinical outcomes.
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Acceleration of emergence of E. coli antibiotic resistance in a simulated sublethal concentration of copper and tetracycline co-contaminated environment
TL;DR: It is proved that copper ions and tetracycline co-contaminated environments could considerably enhance the mutation frequencies of chloramphenicol and polymyxin B resistance in antibiotic susceptible E. coli; however, the corresponding copper ionsand tetrACYcline alone showed weaker effects.
Journal ArticleDOI
Evolutionary landscapes of Pseudomonas aeruginosa towards ribosome-targeting antibiotic resistance depend on selection strength.
TL;DR: Using experimental evolution approaches followed by whole-genome sequencing, the evolutionary trajectories of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in presence of tobramycin or tigecycline, at lethal and sublethal antibiotic concentrations are compared, indicating that the width of sub-MIC selective windows is antibiotic-specific.
Journal ArticleDOI
The pollution level of the blaOXA-58 carbapenemase gene in coastal water and its host bacteria characteristics.
TL;DR: The results showed that the OXA-58 producer accounted for a large percentage of carbapenem resistant bacteria in the sampling points, whereas the VIM, KPC, NDM, IMP, GES, O XA-23, OxA-24, OX a-48 and OXa-51 producers were not detected in the study.
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Expression of resistance genes instead of gene abundance are correlated with trace levels of antibiotics in urban surface waters
TL;DR: The results suggest that trace levels of antibiotics in environmental waters, which was as low as 40 ng L-1, may still play important roles in the development and spread of antibiotic resistance.
References
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