Diverse drug-resistant subpopulations of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are sustained in continuous culture.

ABSTRACT: Drug resistance to tuberculosis (TB) has become more widespread over the past decade. As such, understanding the emergence and fitness of antibiotic-resistant subpopulations is crucial for the development of new interventions. Here we use a simple mathematical model to explain the differences in the response to isoniazid (INH) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis cells cultured under two growth rates in a chemostat. We obtain posterior distributions of model parameters consistent with data using a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. We explore the dynamics of diverse INH-resistant subpopulations consistent with these data in a multi-population model. We find that the simple model captures the qualitative behaviour of the cultures under both dilution rates and also present testable predictions

SUBMITTER: Ayabina D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5134024 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature