Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Existence of log-phase Escherichia coli persisters and lasting memory of a starvation pulse

View ORCID ProfileMikkel Skjoldan Svenningsen, View ORCID ProfileSine Lo Svenningsen, View ORCID ProfileMichael Askvad Sørensen, View ORCID ProfileNamiko Mitarai
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.17.301598
Mikkel Skjoldan Svenningsen
1The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Mikkel Skjoldan Svenningsen
Sine Lo Svenningsen
2The Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Sine Lo Svenningsen
Michael Askvad Sørensen
2The Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Michael Askvad Sørensen
  • For correspondence: mas@bio.ku.dk
Namiko Mitarai
1The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Namiko Mitarai
  • For correspondence: mitarai@nbi.ku.dk
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

The vast majority of a bacterial population is quickly killed when treated with a lethal concentration of antibiotics. The time scale of this killing is often comparable with the bacterial generation time before addition of antibiotics. Yet, a small subpopulation typically survives for an extended period. However, the long-term killing dynamics of bacterial cells has not been fully quantified even in well-controlled laboratory conditions. We constructed a week-long killing assay and followed the survival fraction of Escherichia coli K12 exposed to a high concentration of ciprofloxacin. We found that long-term survivors were formed during exponential growth, with some cells surviving at least 7 days. The long-term dynamics contained at least three timescales, which greatly enhances predictions of the population survival time compared to the biphasic extrapolation from the short term behavior. Furthermore, we observed a surprisingly long memory effect of a brief carbon starvation pulse, which was dependent on the (p)ppGpp synthase relA. Specifically, one hour of carbon starvation prior to antibiotics exposure increased the surviving fraction by nearly 100-fold even after 4 days of ciprofloxacin treatment.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • Figures revised. Text updated.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted September 28, 2021.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Existence of log-phase Escherichia coli persisters and lasting memory of a starvation pulse
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Existence of log-phase Escherichia coli persisters and lasting memory of a starvation pulse
Mikkel Skjoldan Svenningsen, Sine Lo Svenningsen, Michael Askvad Sørensen, Namiko Mitarai
bioRxiv 2020.09.17.301598; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.17.301598
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Existence of log-phase Escherichia coli persisters and lasting memory of a starvation pulse
Mikkel Skjoldan Svenningsen, Sine Lo Svenningsen, Michael Askvad Sørensen, Namiko Mitarai
bioRxiv 2020.09.17.301598; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.17.301598

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Microbiology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4109)
  • Biochemistry (8813)
  • Bioengineering (6517)
  • Bioinformatics (23456)
  • Biophysics (11788)
  • Cancer Biology (9205)
  • Cell Biology (13318)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7433)
  • Ecology (11407)
  • Epidemiology (2066)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15145)
  • Genetics (10433)
  • Genomics (14041)
  • Immunology (9169)
  • Microbiology (22152)
  • Molecular Biology (8808)
  • Neuroscience (47558)
  • Paleontology (350)
  • Pathology (1428)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2491)
  • Physiology (3730)
  • Plant Biology (8079)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1437)
  • Synthetic Biology (2220)
  • Systems Biology (6037)
  • Zoology (1252)