Abstract
BackgroundPersister cells constitute a subpopulation of dormant cells within a microbial population which are genetically identical but phenotypically different to regular cells. Notably, persister cells show an elevated tolerance to antimicrobial agents. Thus, they are considered to represent a microbial ‘bet-hedging’ strategy and are of particular importance in pathogenic bacteria.ResultsWe studied the ability of the zoonotic pathogen Streptococcus (S.) suis to form multi-drug tolerant variants and identified persister cells dependent on the initial bacterial growth phase. We observed lower numbers of persisters in exponential phase cultures than in stationary growth phase populations. S. suis persister cells showed a high tolerance to a variety of antibiotics, and the phenotype was not inherited as tested with four passages of S. suis populations. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the persister phenotype is related to expression of genes involved in general metabolic pathways since we found higher numbers of persister cells in a mutant strain defective in the catabolic arginine deiminase system as compared to its parental wild type strain. Finally, we observed persister cell formation also in other S. suis strains and pathogenic streptococcal species.ConclusionsTaken together, this is the first study that reports multi-drug tolerant persister cells in the zoonotic pathogen S. suis.
Highlights
Persister cells constitute a subpopulation of dormant cells within a microbial population which are genetically identical but phenotypically different to regular cells
Identification of a multi-drug tolerant persister cell subpopulation in S. suis Since persister cell formation is important for antibiotic tolerance and recurrent infections, we studied the occurrence of persister cells in the zoonotic pathogen S. suis using a highly virulent serotype 2 strain, strain 10
To test whether S. suis is capable of persister cells exists, which show different degrees of tolerance depending on the class of antibiotic
Summary
Persister cells constitute a subpopulation of dormant cells within a microbial population which are genetically identical but phenotypically different to regular cells. Persister cells show an elevated tolerance to antimicrobial agents. They are considered to represent a microbial ‘bet-hedging’ strategy and are of particular importance in pathogenic bacteria. Formation of persister cells by bacteria is a phenomenon that, amongst others, contributes to tolerance of a bacterial subpopulation to antimicrobial agents. This antibiotic tolerance of persister cells is distinct from genetically inherited resistance. Persister cells are genetically identical to antibiotic sensitive bacteria within a population, but have a distinct phenotype in that they are tolerant to certain antibiotics [3].
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