Rapid expansion and extinction of antibiotic resistance mutations during treatment of acute bacterial respiratory infections.

ABSTRACT: Acute bacterial infections are often treated empirically, with the choice of antibiotic therapy updated during treatment. The effects of such rapid antibiotic switching on the evolution of antibiotic resistance in individual patients are poorly understood. Here we find that low-frequency antibiotic resistance mutations emerge, contract, and even go to extinction within days of changes in therapy. We analyzed Pseudomonas aeruginosa populations in sputum samples collected serially from 7 mechanically ventilated patients at the onset of respiratory infection. Combining short- and long-read sequencing and resistance phenotyping of 420 isolates revealed that while new infections are near-clonal, reflecting a recent colonization bottleneck, resistance mutations could emerge at low frequencies wi

SUBMITTER: Chung H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8907320 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature