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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Ecological Nutrition: Redefining Healthy Food in Health Care
TL;DR: This work sheds light on the question of whether the alternative agrifood movement can effectively scale up to meet institutional demand without losing sight of the social, health, and environmental values that brought it into being.
DissertationDOI
Antibiotic resistance reservoirs: the cases of sponge and human gut microbiota
TL;DR: It was found that clinically relevant antibiotic resistance genes are expressed in a broad range of environmental niches including human, mouse and pig gut microbiota, sea bacterioplankton, a marine sponge, forest soil and sub-seafloor sediment and that many novel bacterial taxa can still be isolated by conventional cultivation methods.
Journal ArticleDOI
Tetracycline accumulation in biofilms enhances the selection pressure on Escherichia coli for expression of antibiotic resistance.
Xiaojie Hu,Yingjie Zhang,Zeyou Chen,Yanzheng Gao,Brian J. Teppen,Stephen Boyd,Wei Zhang,James M. Tiedje,Hu Li +8 more
TL;DR: In this article , an E. coli bioreporter was used to develop biofilms on glass and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) surfaces, and compared with the corresponding planktonic bacteria in antibiotic resistance expression when exposed to a range of μg/L levels of tetracycline.
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Are subinhibitory concentrations of antibiotics the only culprit of antibiotic resistance
TL;DR: Consumption of antibiotics and antifungals alone cannot explain the selection of resistant bacterial and fungal mutants and other factors have to be investigated.
Mechanisms and Dynamics of Carbapenem Resistance in Escherichia coli
TL;DR: The combination of ESBL production and porin loss in E. coli can result in reduced susceptibility to ertapenem, and inappropriate use of ertAPenem should be avoided to minimize the risk of selection of ES BL-producing bacteria with reducing susceptibility to carbapenems.
References
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Antibiotic resistance and its cost: is it possible to reverse resistance?
Dan I. Andersson,Diarmaid Hughes +1 more
TL;DR: The findings suggest that the fitness costs of resistance will allow susceptible bacteria to outcompete resistant bacteria if the selective pressure from antibiotics is reduced, and that the rate of reversibility will be slow at the community level.
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