A Roadblock-and-Kill Mechanism of Action Model for the DNA-Targeting Antibiotic Ciprofloxacin.

ABSTRACT: Fluoroquinolones, antibiotics that cause DNA damage by inhibiting DNA topoisomerases, are clinically important, but their mechanism of action is not yet fully understood. In particular, the dynamical response of bacterial cells to fluoroquinolone exposure has hardly been investigated, although the SOS response, triggered by DNA damage, is often thought to play a key role. Here, we investigated the growth inhibition of the bacterium Escherichia coli by the fluoroquinolone ciprofloxacin at low concentrations. We measured the long-term and short-term dynamical response of the growth rate and DNA production rate to ciprofloxacin at both the population and single-cell levels. We show that, despite the molecular complexity of DNA metabolism, a simple roadblock-and-kill model focusing on replicat

SUBMITTER: Ojkic N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7449190 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature