We have published a new data highlight, entitled ‘New study shows that perserverance can be the reason for antibiotic resistance development’, which is based on Brandis et al. (2023)

Antibiotic resistance is often termed the ‘silent pandemic’. As resistance to antibiotics becomes more widespread, it is becoming clearer that there may be a day where currently curable diseases are no longer easily treatable with antiobiotics. In a recent publication, researchers systematically exposed Escherichia coli to above-MIC (minimal inhibitory concentration) or sub-MIC concentrations of antibiotics in order to study the development of resistance.As a result of this work, the researchers described a new concept; antibiotic perseverance. They defined antibiotic perseverance as the ability of a subpopulation to maintain replication longer than the main population even at the MIC. Antibiotic perseverance was found to be a common phenomenon that increased the risk of the development of resistance by up to 40-fold in both gram-negative and gram-positive species. Raw microscopy image data and code used for analysis are both openly shared.

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