Reactive oxygen species accelerate de novo acquisition of antibiotic resistance in E. coli.

ABSTRACT: Reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced as a secondary effect of bactericidal antibiotics are hypothesized to play a role in killing bacteria. If correct, ROS may play a role in development of de novo resistance. Here we report that single-gene knockout strains with reduced ROS scavenging exhibited enhanced ROS accumulation and more rapid acquisition of resistance when exposed to sublethal levels of bactericidal antibiotics. Consistent with this observation, the ROS scavenger thiourea in the medium decelerated resistance development. Thiourea downregulated the transcriptional level of error-prone DNA polymerase and DNA glycosylase MutM, which counters the incorporation and accumulation of 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-HOdG) in the genome. The level of 8-HOdG significantly increased

SUBMITTER: Qi W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10679899 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature