New PreMiEr Publication: E. coli Can Evolve Resistance to Antibiotics, Metals and Viruses at Once
PreMiEr researchers Joseph L. Graves Jr. and Liesl Jeffers-Francis coauthored a study showing how quickly E. coli can develop resistance across multiple threats.
Combining phages with antibiotics or metals is a promising strategy against drug resistant bacteria, but the evolutionary consequences are not well understood. In a new study published in Ecology and Evolution, researchers evolved E. coli populations under ampicillin, gallium nitrate, phage, or combinations of these pressures. The bacteria readily developed cross resistance, and phage resistant mutants showed triple resistance to phage, ampicillin and gallium nitrate. A phage resistance mutation persisted even after phage pressure was removed, and the same genes were repeatedly targeted across different conditions. The findings highlight the need to understand these tradeoffs before combination treatments are widely used.
Read more here: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.74239