Nonoptimal Gene Expression Creates Latent Potential for Antibiotic Resistance.

ABSTRACT: Bacteria regulate genes to survive antibiotic stress, but regulation can be far from perfect. When regulation is not optimal, mutations that change gene expression can contribute to antibiotic resistance. It is not systematically understood to what extent natural gene regulation is or is not optimal for distinct antibiotics, and how changes in expression of specific genes quantitatively affect antibiotic resistance. Here we discover a simple quantitative relation between fitness, gene expression, and antibiotic potency, which rationalizes our observation that a multitude of genes and even innate antibiotic defense mechanisms have expression that is critically nonoptimal under antibiotic treatment. First, we developed a pooled-strain drug-diffusion assay and screened Escherichia coli overex

SUBMITTER: Palmer AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6231494 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature