Triclosan-tolerant bacteria: changes in susceptibility to antibiotics

There is no clear consensus regarding the effect of biocide tolerance on antibiotic susceptibility. In this work, triclosan-tolerant strains of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Acinetobacter johnsonii were compared with sensitive strains in order to ascertain their susceptibility to a range of antibiotics. The minimum inhibitory concentrations of triclosan were measured using broth- and agar-dilution techniques. Antibiotic susceptibilities were determined using the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy guidelines. No triclosan-tolerant strains were resistant to antibiotics, and there was no overall tendency for triclosan-tolerant strains to have significantly smaller zones of inhibition compared with counterpart strains. Triclosan-tolerant strains of E. coli were significantly more susceptible to aminoglycoside antibiotics. The mechanism by which E. coli develops tolerance to triclosan appears to be linked to aminoglycoside susceptibility. It is proposed that changes in outer membrane, or the toss of plasmids, may be responsible for this relationship. (C) 2009 The Hospital Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.