Resuscitation dynamics reveal persister partitioning after antibiotic treatment

Abstract

“If true, this would unify the stochastic and exponential models. Separately, recent studies have applied the term “persister” to growth-arrested cells, achieved by rifampicin treatment (Kim et al, 2018; Yamasaki et al, 2020). Nearly all of these cells then survive ampicillin treatment and have heterogeneous fates including some which return to exponential growth. This “tolerance” is expected given that ampicillin killing is strictly proportional to cellular growth rate (Tuomanen et al, 1986). Moreover, the resuscitation of these cells likely reflects the recovery from rifampicin-induced ribosome depletion (Hamouche et al, 2021). Contextualized by past research, our findings suggest some persisters are delayed in an antibiotic-dependent limbo before they resuscitate.” The following three citations are added to the Discussion section of this paper. Kim J-S, Yamasaki R, Song S, Zhang W, Wood TK (2018) Single cell observations show persister cells wake based on ribosome content. Environ Microbiol 20: 2085–2098.