Abstract
Biofilm formation protects bacteria from antibiotics. Very little is known about the response of biofilm-dwelling bacteria to antibiotics at the single cell level. Here, we developed a cell-tracking approach to investigate how antibiotics affect structure and dynamics of colonies formed by the human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Antibiotics targeting different cellular functions enlarge the cell volumes and modulate within-colony motility. Focusing on azithromycin and ceftriaxone, we identify changes in type 4 pilus (T4P) mediated cell-to-cell attraction as the molecular mechanism for different effects on motility. By using strongly attractive mutant strains, we reveal that the survivability under ceftriaxone treatment depends on motility. Combining our results, we find that sequential treatment with azithromycin and ceftriaxone is synergistic. Taken together, we demonstrate that antibiotics modulate T4P-mediated attractions and hence cell motility and colony fluidity.
Highlights
Aggregation has a strong potential for protecting bacteria from antibiotics
Even moderate changes in cell-to-cell attraction caused by antibiotics strongly impact on within-colony motility
We reveal that motility correlates with survivability under antibiotic treatment
Summary
Aggregation has a strong potential for protecting bacteria from antibiotics. A multitude of different mechanisms has been shown to be responsible for protection [1]. Antibiotics modulate attractive interactions in bacterial colonies (http://www.ihrs-biosoft.de). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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