Potential for adaptation overrides cost of resistance.

ABSTRACT:

Aim

To investigate the cost of antibiotic resistance versus the potential for resistant clones to adapt in maintaining polymorphism for resistance.

Materials & methods

Experimental evolution of Escherichia coli carrying different resistance alleles was performed under an environment devoid of antibiotics and evolutionary parameters estimated from their frequencies along time.

Results & conclusion

Costly resistance mutations were found to coexist with lower cost resistances for hundreds of generations, contrary to the hypothesis that the cost of a resistance dictates its extinction. Estimated evolutionary parameters for the different resistance backgrounds suggest a higher adaptive potential of clones with costly antibiotic resistance mutations, overriding their initia

SUBMITTER: Moura de Sousa J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4663674 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature