Persister formation in Escherichia coli can be inhibited by treatment with nitric oxide.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial persisters are phenotypic variants that survive extraordinary concentrations of antibiotics, and are thought to underlie the propensity of biofilm infections to relapse. Unfortunately many aspects of persister physiology remain ill-defined, which prevents progress toward eradicating the phenotype. Recently, we identified respiration within non-growing Escherichia coli populations as a potential target for the elimination type I persisters, which are those that arise from passage through stationary phase. Here we discovered that nitric oxide (NO) treatment at the onset of stationary phase significantly reduced type I persister formation through its ability to inhibit respiration. NO decreased protein and RNA degradation in stationary phase cells, and produced populations that were

SUBMITTER: Orman MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4898466 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature