In vitro emergence of high persistence upon periodic aminoglycoside challenge in the ESKAPE pathogens.

In vitro emergence of high persistence upon periodic aminoglycoside challenge in the ESKAPE pathogens. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2016 May 16; Authors: Michiels JE, Van den Bergh B, Verstraeten N, Fauvart M, Michiels J Abstract Healthcare-associated infections present a major threat to modern medical care. Six worrisome nosocomial pathogens - Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacter spp. - are collectively referred to as the 'ESKAPE bugs'. They are notorious for extensive multidrug resistance, yet persistence, or the phenotypic tolerance displayed by a variant subpopulation, remains underappreciated in these pathogens. Importantly, persistence can prevent eradication of antibiotic-sensitive bacterial populations and is thought to act as a catalyst for the development of genetic resistance. Concentration- and time-dependent aminoglycoside killing experiments were used to investigate persistence in the ESKAPE pathogens. Additionally, a recently developed method for the experimental evolution of persistence was employed to investigate adaptation to high-dose, extended-interval aminoglycoside therapy in vitro We show that ESKAPE pathogens exhibit biphasic killing kinetics, indicative of persister formation. In vitro cycling between aminoglycoside killing and persister cell regrowth, evocative of clinical high-dose extended-interval therapy, caus...
Source: Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: Antimicrob Agents Chemother Source Type: research