ArticlePLoS genetics2013
Starvation, together with the SOS response, mediates high biofilm-specific tolerance to the fluoroquinolone ofloxacin.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 139 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
139 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 260 citations in OpenAlex.
- Antimicrobial Tolerance in Biofilms.Microbiology spectrum · 2015Pooled it
- Trial
- Should I stay or should I go? DNA damage thresholds drive stay-or-go decisions inJournal of bacteriology · 2026Review
- Role of starvation survival response mechanisms on ribosome integrity, antibiotic tolerances, and virulence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2026Article
- Targeting metabolism to combat anticancer and antibacterial drug resistance.Trends in pharmacological sciences · 2026Review
- The SOS Response: A Double-Edged Sword between the Persister and Resister Formation.ACS omega · 2026Review
- Expression patterns of core metabolic genes and elevated intracellular ROS confer drug tolerance inMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Article
- The role of bacterial metabolism in antimicrobial resistance.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2025Review
- Article
- Biofilm characterisation of Mycoplasma bovis co-cultured with Trueperella pyogenes.Veterinary research · 2025Article
- Expression ofFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Article
- Article
- Nanomotion technology: an innovative method to study cell metabolism inJournal of medical microbiology · 2024Article
- Adjunctive intravesical EDTA-tromethamine treatment of a biofilm-associated recurrentThe Canadian veterinary journal = La revue veterinaire canadienne · 2024Article
- Bacterial persisters: molecular mechanisms and therapeutic development.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2024Review
- Metabolic and transcriptional activities underlie stationary-phaseMicrobiology spectrum · 2024Article
- Transcriptomic profiles of Mannheimia haemolytica planktonic and biofilm associated cells.PloS one · 2024Article
- Genotoxic stress stimulates eDNA release via explosive cell lysis and thereby promotes streamer formation of Burkholderia cenocepacia H111 cultured in a microfluidic device.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2023Article
- Single-cell patterning and characterisation of antibiotic persistent bacteria using bio-sCAPA.Lab on a chip · 2023Article
79 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
High levels of antibiotic tolerance are a hallmark of bacterial biofilms. In contrast to well-characterized inherited antibiotic resistance, molecular mechanisms leading to reversible and transient antibiotic tolerance displayed by biofilm bacteria are still poorly understood. The physiological heterogeneity of biofilms influences the formation of transient specialized subpopulations that may be more tolerant to antibiotics. In this study, we used random transposon mutagenesis to identify biofilm-specific tolerant mutants normally exhibited by subpopulations located in specialized niches of heterogeneous biofilms. Using Escherichia coli as a model organism, we demonstrated, through identification of amino acid auxotroph mutants, that starved biofilms exhibited significantly greater tolerance towards fluoroquinolone ofloxacin than their planktonic counterparts. We demonstrated that the biofilm-associated tolerance to ofloxacin was fully dependent on a functional SOS response upon starvation to both amino acids and carbon source and partially dependent on the stringent response upon leucine starvation. However, the biofilm-specific ofloxacin increased tolerance did not involve any of the SOS-induced toxin-antitoxin systems previously associated with formation of highly tolerant persisters. We further demonstrated that ofloxacin tolerance was induced as a function of biofilm age, which was dependent on the SOS response. Our results therefore show that the SOS stress response induced in heterogeneous and nutrient-deprived biofilm microenvironments is a molecular mechanism leading to biofilm-specific high tolerance to the fluoroquinolone ofloxacin.
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