Persistence against benzalkonium chloride promotes rapid evolution of tolerance during periodic disinfection
Niclas Nordholt (),
Orestis Kanaris,
Selina B. I. Schmidt and
Frank Schreiber ()
Additional contact information
Niclas Nordholt: Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM)
Orestis Kanaris: Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM)
Selina B. I. Schmidt: Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM)
Frank Schreiber: Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM)
Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-13
Abstract:
Abstract Biocides used as disinfectants are important to prevent the transmission of pathogens, especially during the current antibiotic resistance crisis. This crisis is exacerbated by phenotypically tolerant persister subpopulations that can survive transient antibiotic treatment and facilitate resistance evolution. Here, we show that E. coli displays persistence against a widely used disinfectant, benzalkonium chloride (BAC). Periodic, persister-mediated failure of disinfection rapidly selects for BAC tolerance, which is associated with reduced cell surface charge and mutations in the lpxM locus, encoding an enzyme for lipid A biosynthesis. Moreover, the fitness cost incurred by BAC tolerance turns into a fitness benefit in the presence of antibiotics, suggesting a selective advantage of BAC-tolerant mutants in antibiotic environments. Our findings highlight the links between persistence to disinfectants and resistance evolution to antimicrobials.
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27019-8 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:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-27019-8
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27019-8
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 ().