Sub-inhibitory antibiotic treatment selects for enhanced metabolic efficiency.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial growth and metabolic rates are often closely related. However, under antibiotic selection, a paradox in this relationship arises: antibiotic efficacy decreases when bacteria are metabolically dormant, yet antibiotics select for resistant cells that grow fastest during treatment. That is, antibiotic selection counterintuitively favors bacteria with fast growth but slow metabolism. Despite this apparent contradiction, antibiotic resistant cells have historically been characterized primarily in the context of growth, whereas the extent of analogous changes in metabolism is comparatively unknown. Here, we observed that previously evolved antibiotic-resistant strains exhibited a unique relationship between growth and metabolism whereby nutrient utilization became more efficient, regar

SUBMITTER: Aduru SV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10846238 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature