Abstract
Abstract. A long-standing hypothesis regarding antibiotic resistance assumes that the evolution of resistant genotypes comes at a fitness cost to individuals. This predicts that resistance will disappear from populations when antibiotic stress is removed because susceptible individuals can then outcompete resistant individuals. However, recent studies have shown that low fitness costs and the evolution of fitness compensation cause very low levels of reversion to susceptibility in some situations. This study evaluated the fitness parameters associated with ampicillin resistance in Escherichia coli under optimal, temperature stressed, and nutrient limited conditions by comparing optical density values between resistant and susceptible individuals. Unexpectedly, the ampicillin resistant population grew faster than the susceptible population under optimal and limited nutrient conditions and experienced no fitness cost under temperature stress conditions. Though ampicillin is not used in clinical settings and...
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