Complex Interplay of Physiology and Selection in the Emergence of Antibiotic Resistance.

ABSTRACT: Emergence of antibiotic resistance, an evolutionary process of major importance for human health [1], often occurs under changing levels of antibiotics. Selective sweeps, in which resistant cells become dominant in the population, are a critical step in this process [2]. While resistance emergence has been studied in laboratory experiments [3-8], the full progression of selective sweeps under fluctuating stress, from stochastic events in single cells to fixation in populations, has not been characterized. Here, we study fluctuating selection using Escherichia coli populations engineered with a stochastic switch controlling tetracycline resistance. Using microfluidics and live-cell imaging, we treat multiple E. coli populations with the same total amount of tetracycline but administered in

SUBMITTER: Lin WH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4899102 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature