期刊
FRONTIERS IN BIOSCIENCE-LANDMARK
卷 14, 期 -, 页码 4815-4824出版社
FRONTIERS IN BIOSCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.2741/3570
关键词
Microbial Competition; Altruism; Antibiotic Resistance
资金
- National Institutes of Health [1 R15 AI060667-01A1]
- Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Louisville
Emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria threatens the continued efficacy of many critical drugs used to treat serious infections. What if such resistant organisms could also act as altruists and share their resistance with sensitive cohorts without any actual genetic exchange? We competed resistant strains that differ solely in their ability to secrete a plasmid-encoded beta-lactamase. Sensitive strains were otherwise isogenic with their resistant counterparts and were either plasmid-free or contained a Dummy plasmid of roughly the same size as that of the resistance plasmids. Absent antibiotic selection, plasmid-free sensitive strains outperformed the plasmid-bearing strains. In the presence of ampicillin, the outcome depended on whether the resistant strain secreted its beta-lactamase (Altruist) or retained it (Selfish). In the latter case, only resistant cells survived. When beta-lactamase was secreted, some sensitive cohorts were also provided protection, with the largest fitness increase provided to plasmid-free cells. However, some Altruist strains appeared to be at a disadvantage, as a great deal of their enzyme broke off cells. Thus, additional variables must be considered when designing microbial competition experiments.
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