Stationary-phase Pseudomonas aeruginosa fluoroquinolone persisters mostly avoid DNA double-stranded breaks.

ABSTRACT: When susceptible bacterial cultures are treated with antibiotics, some cells can survive treatment without heritable resistance, giving rise to susceptible daughter cells in a phenomenon termed antibiotic persistence. Current models of fluoroquinolone (FQ) persistence in stationary-phase cultures posit that post-treatment resuscitation is dependent on double-stranded break (DSB) repair through RecA-mediated homology-directed repair. Previously, we reported that stationary-phase P. aeruginosa does not depend on RecA to persist. In this work, we ask whether P. aeruginosa FQ persisters from stationary-phase cultures suffer DSBs at all. We measured DSB formation in Levofloxacin (LVX)-treated cells recovering from treatment using strains expressing fluorescently labeled DSB-bindin

SUBMITTER: Hare PJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12838390 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature