Brief antibiotic use drives human gut bacteria towards low-cost resistance.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the relationship between antibiotic use and the evolution of antimicrobial resistance is vital for effective antibiotic stewardship. Yet, animal models and in vitro experiments poorly replicate real-world conditions¹. To explain how resistance evolves in vivo, we exposed 60 human participants to ciprofloxacin and used longitudinal stool samples and a new computational method to assemble the genomes of 5,665 populations of commensal bacterial species within participants. Analysis of 2.3 million polymorphic sequence variants revealed 513 populations that underwent selective sweeps. We found convergent evolution focused on DNA gyrase and evidence of dispersed selective pressure at other genomic loci. Roughly 10% of susceptible bacterial populations evolved towards res

SUBMITTER: Yaffe E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12168174 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature