Inhibiting bacterial cooperation is an evolutionarily robust anti-biofilm strategy

Lise Dieltjens, Kenny Appermans, Maries Lissens, Bram Lories, Wook Kim, Erik V. Van der Eycken, Kevin R. Foster () and Hans P. Steenackers ()
Additional contact information
Lise Dieltjens: Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven
Kenny Appermans: Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven
Maries Lissens: Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven
Bram Lories: Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven
Wook Kim: University of Oxford
Erik V. Van der Eycken: Laboratory for Organic & Microwave-Assisted Chemistry (LOMAC), KU Leuven
Kevin R. Foster: University of Oxford
Hans P. Steenackers: Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Bacteria commonly form dense biofilms encased in extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). Biofilms are often extremely tolerant to antimicrobials but their reliance on shared EPS may also be a weakness as social evolution theory predicts that inhibiting shared traits can select against resistance. Here we show that EPS of Salmonella biofilms is a cooperative trait whose benefit is shared among cells, and that EPS inhibition reduces both cell attachment and antimicrobial tolerance. We then compare an EPS inhibitor to conventional antimicrobials in an evolutionary experiment. While resistance against conventional antimicrobials rapidly evolves, we see no evolution of resistance to EPS inhibition. We further show that a resistant strain is outcompeted by a susceptible strain under EPS inhibitor treatment, explaining why resistance does not evolve. Our work suggests that targeting cooperative traits is a viable solution to the problem of antimicrobial resistance.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13660-x Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-13660-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13660-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().