@article{3552, keywords = {Anti-Bacterial Agents, Bacteria, Terminology as Topic, Drug Tolerance, Biomedical Research, Guidelines as Topic}, author = {Nathalie Balaban and Sophie Helaine and Kim Lewis and Martin Ackermann and Bree Aldridge and Dan Andersson and Mark Brynildsen and Dirk Bumann and Andrew Camilli and James Collins and Christoph Dehio and Sarah Fortune and Jean-Marc Ghigo and Wolf-Dietrich Hardt and Alexander Harms and Matthias Heinemann and Deborah Hung and Urs Jenal and Bruce Levin and Jan Michiels and Gisela Storz and Man-Wah Tan and Tanel Tenson and Laurence Van Melderen and Annelies Zinkernagel}, title = {Definitions and guidelines for research on antibiotic persistence.}, abstract = {
Increasing concerns about the rising rates of antibiotic therapy failure and advances in~single-cell analyses have inspired a surge of research into antibiotic persistence. Bacterial persister cells represent a subpopulation of cells that can survive intensive antibiotic treatment without being resistant. Several approaches have emerged to define and measure persistence, and it is now time to agree on the basic definition of persistence and its relation to the other mechanisms by which bacteria survive exposure to bactericidal antibiotic treatments, such as antibiotic resistance, heteroresistance or tolerance. In this Consensus Statement, we provide definitions of persistence phenomena, distinguish between triggered and spontaneous persistence and provide a guide to measuring persistence. Antibiotic persistence is not only an interesting example of non-genetic single-cell heterogeneity, it may also have a role in the failure of antibiotic treatments. Therefore, it is our hope that the guidelines outlined in this article will pave the way for better characterization of antibiotic persistence and for understanding its relevance to clinical outcomes.
}, year = {2019}, journal = {Nat Rev Microbiol}, volume = {17}, pages = {441-448}, month = {2019 Jul}, issn = {1740-1534}, doi = {10.1038/s41579-019-0196-3}, language = {eng}, }