A multifaceted cellular damage repair and prevention pathway promotes high-level tolerance to β-lactam antibiotics.

ABSTRACT: Bactericidal antibiotics are powerful agents due to their ability to convert essential bacterial functions into lethal processes. However, many important bacterial pathogens are remarkably tolerant against bactericidal antibiotics due to inducible damage repair responses. The cell wall damage response two-component system VxrAB of the gastrointestinal pathogen Vibrio cholerae promotes high-level β-lactam tolerance and controls a gene network encoding highly diverse functions, including negative control over multiple iron uptake systems. How this system contributes to tolerance is poorly understood. Here, we show that β-lactam antibiotics cause an increase in intracellular free iron levels and collateral oxidative damage, which is exacerbated in the ∆vxrAB mutant. Mutating major iron uptake

SUBMITTER: Shin JH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7857431 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature