Segregational drift hinders the evolution of antibiotic resistance on polyploid replicons.

ABSTRACT: The emergence of antibiotic resistance under treatment depends on the availability of resistance alleles and their establishment in the population. Novel resistance alleles are encoded either in chromosomal or extrachromosomal genetic elements; both types may be present in multiple copies within the cell. However, the effect of polyploidy on the emergence of antibiotic resistance remains understudied. Here we show that the establishment of resistance alleles in microbial populations depends on the ploidy level. Evolving bacterial populations under selection for antibiotic resistance, we demonstrate that resistance alleles in polyploid elements are lost frequently in comparison to alleles in monoploid elements due to segregational drift. Integrating the experiments with a mathematical model

SUBMITTER: Garona A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10399855 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature