Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA) can overcome the cost of antibiotic resistance and may threaten vancomycin's clinical durability.

ABSTRACT: Vancomycin has proven remarkably durable to resistance evolution by Staphylococcus aureus despite widespread treatment with vancomycin in the clinic. Only 16 cases of vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA) have been documented in the United States. It is thought that the failure of VRSA to spread is partly due to the fitness cost imposed by the vanA operon, which is the only known means of high-level resistance. Here, we show that the fitness cost of vanA-mediated resistance can be overcome through laboratory evolution of VRSA in the presence of vancomycin. Adaptation to vancomycin imposed a tradeoff such that fitness in the presence of vancomycin increased, while fitness in its absence decreased in evolved lineages. Comparing the genomes of vancomycin-exposed and vancomycin-unexposed linea

SUBMITTER: Blechman SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11361437 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature