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Engineering persister-specific antibiotics with synergistic antimicrobial functions.

ABSTRACT: Most antibiotics target growth processes and are ineffective against persister bacterial cells, which tolerate antibiotics due to their reduced metabolic activity. These persisters act as a genetic reservoir for resistant mutants and constitute a root cause of antibiotic resistance, a worldwide problem in human health. We re-engineer antibiotics specifically for persisters using tobramycin, an aminoglycoside antibiotic that targets bacterial ribosomes but is ineffective against persisters with low metabolic and cellular transport activity. By giving tobramycin the ability to induce nanoscopic negative Gaussian membrane curvature via addition of 12 amino acids, we transform tobramycin itself into a transporter sequence. The resulting molecule spontaneously permeates membranes, retains the high antibiotic activity of aminoglycosides, kills E. coli and S. aureus persisters 4-6 logs better than tobramycin, but remains noncytotoxic to eukaryotes. These results suggest a promising paradigm to renovate traditional antibiotics.

SUBMITTER: Schmidt NW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4173747 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Engineering persister-specific antibiotics with synergistic antimicrobial functions.

Schmidt Nathan W NW Deshayes Stephanie S Hawker Sinead S Blacker Alyssa A Kasko Andrea M AM Wong Gerard C L GC

ACS nano 20140818 9

Most antibiotics target growth processes and are ineffective against persister bacterial cells, which tolerate antibiotics due to their reduced metabolic activity. These persisters act as a genetic reservoir for resistant mutants and constitute a root cause of antibiotic resistance, a worldwide problem in human health. We re-engineer antibiotics specifically for persisters using tobramycin, an aminoglycoside antibiotic that targets bacterial ribosomes but is ineffective against persisters with l ...[more]

PMID: 25130648

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Project description:A whole genome screen was used to assay every gene of Escherichia coli strain BW25113 to identify genes involved in susceptibility to the monobactam (beta-lactam) antibiotic aztreonam. The methodology has been called TraDIS-Xpress, and is a version of TraDIS or Tn-seq. A transposon mutant library consisting of several hundred thousand mutants was constructed using a Tn5-derived transposon incorporating an inducible outward transcribing promoter. All the mutants were grown in LB broth cultures supplemented with aztreonam at 2 x, 1 x, 0.5 x and 0.25 x MIC with induction of the transposon promoter using 0.2 mM IPTG or 1 mM IPTG or without induction. Following growth, mutants with increased susceptibility show reduced numbers and those with reduced susceptibility show increased numbers. Each condition was performed in duplicate. The methodology enable genes to be assayed by insertional inactivation or by changes in expression. Expression changes result from altered transcription from upstream transposon insertions transcribing into the gene, or downstream insertions transcribing into the gene in the reverse direction leading to RNA interference through the generation of reverse and complementary RNA. Thus, essential genes into which transposon insertions are not tolerated may be assayed also by changes in numbers of upstream or downstream insertion mutants. Changes to high throughput sequencing protocols permit the generation of nucleotide sequence reads from the known transposon sequences into the surrounding insertion site for all the mutants in the mixture simultaneously. Matching the sequence of the reads to the genome nucleotide sequence of E. coli BW25113 then allows the precise locations of all the transposon insertion sites of all the mutants to be mapped simultaneously. The relative changes in mutants between control (without) and selective condition (with aztreonam) then indicates which genes are involved in susceptibility. The numbers of sequence reads that match is reflected by the number of mutants, and so the degree of susceptibility can also be estimated.

Dataset Information

Engineering persister-specific antibiotics with synergistic antimicrobial functions.

Publications

Engineering persister-specific antibiotics with synergistic antimicrobial functions.

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