Persister formation in Escherichia coli can be inhibited by treatment with nitric oxide. Author Mehmet Orman, Mark Brynildsen Publication Year 2016 Type Journal Article Abstract Bacterial persisters are phenotypic variants that survive extraordinary concentrations of antibiotics, and are thought to underlie the propensity of biofilm infections to relapse. Unfortunately many aspects of persister physiology remain ill-defined, which prevents progress toward eradicating the phenotype. Recently, we identified respiration within non-growing Escherichia coli populations as a potential target for the elimination type I persisters, which are those that arise from passage through stationary phase. Here we discovered that nitric oxide (NO) treatment at the onset of stationary phase significantly reduced type I persister formation through its ability to inhibit respiration. NO decreased protein and RNA degradation in stationary phase cells, and produced populations that were more fit for protein synthesis and growth resumption upon introduction into fresh media than untreated controls. Overall, this data shows that NO, which is a therapeutically-relevant compound, has the potential to decrease the incidence of recurrent infections from persisters. Keywords Protein Biosynthesis, Escherichia coli, Biofilms, Anti-Bacterial Agents, Microbial Sensitivity Tests, Humans, RNA Stability, Proteolysis, Nitric Oxide, Drug Resistance, Bacterial Journal Free Radic Biol Med Volume 93 Pages 145-54 Date Published 2016 Apr ISSN Number 1873-4596 DOI 10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2016.02.003 Alternate Journal Free Radic Biol Med PMCID PMC4898466 PMID 26849946 PubMedPubMed CentralGoogle ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML