Universal antibiotic tolerance arising from antibiotic-triggered accumulation of pyocyanin in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000573
• Publication Date: 2019-12-16T18:36:33Z
• Authors: Kui Zhu; Shang Chen; Tatyana A. Sysoeva; Lingchong You
• Keywords: Pyocyanin; Multidrug tolerance; Human pathogen

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that often infects open wounds or patients with cystic fibrosis. Once established, P. infections are notoriously difficult to eradicate. This difficulty in part due the ability of tolerate antibiotic treatment at individual-cell level through collective behaviors. Here, we describe a new phenomenon by which tolerates treatment. In particular, sublethal concentrations antibiotics covering all major classes promoted accumulation redox-sensitive phenazine pyocyanin (PYO). PYO turn conferred general tolerance against diverse for both and other gram-negative gram-positive bacteria. property shared redox-active phenazines produced aeruginosa. Our discovery sheds insights into physiological functions has implications designing effective protocols.