ReviewNature reviews. Microbiology2016
Distinguishing between resistance, tolerance and persistence to antibiotic treatment.
Review in Nature reviews. Microbiology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 850 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
850 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Molecular Epidemiology and AMR Perspective of Diarrhoeagenic Escherichia coli in Africa: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Journal of epidemiology and global health · 2024Pooled it
- Biofilm-mediated antibiotic tolerance in bacterial pathogens: Integrated molecular networks and novel therapeutic avenues.Virulence · 2026Review
- Carbonic Anhydrases in Mycobacteria: Linking Metabolic Adaptation to Phenotypic Drug Tolerance.Current microbiology · 2026Review
- Bacterial strategies for surviving antibiotics during urinary tract infection: could uropathogenic Escherichia coli be persisters?Nature reviews. Urology · 2026Review
- Heteroresistance tolerance and persistence in antibiotic treatment failure.Folia microbiologica · 2026Review
- Population size modulates the transition from gene amplification-mediated heteroresistance to stable resistance.npj antimicrobials and resistance · 2026Article
- Evaluating the Antimicrobial Activity of Curcumin-loaded Lipid Nanocarriers When Applying Photodynamic and Sonodynamic Therapy for the Treatment of Skin Infections.Pharmaceutical research · 2026Article
- MakingCell insight · 2026Review
- Programmable 3D Microfluidics Reveals Motility-Driven Antibiotic Resistance Evolution in Gradients.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Distinct transcription factor network dynamics underlie early and long-term adaptation to rifampicin inmSystems · 2026Article
- Chloramphenicol stress triggers oxidative adaptation inmSystems · 2026Article
- Biofilm formation and dynamics in the marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Antibiotic Resistance and the Return to a Pre-Antibiotic Era: A Critical Narrative Review of a Global Catastrophe.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Article
- Selective context, rather than persister cycling alone, drives resistance fixation in Escherichia coli.npj antimicrobials and resistance · 2026Article
- Article
- Mislocalization of PBPs inMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Contributions of persisters and the Eagle effect to survival ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Time-resolved proteomic adaptation of multidrug-resistantMicrobiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Beyond probiotics: Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus as a multi-target antagonist of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections.Folia microbiologica · 2026Review
790 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Antibiotic tolerance is associated with the failure of antibiotic treatment and the relapse of many bacterial infections. However, unlike resistance, which is commonly measured using the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) metric, tolerance is poorly characterized, owing to the lack of a similar quantitative indicator. This may lead to the misclassification of tolerant strains as resistant, or vice versa, and result in ineffective treatments. In this Opinion article, we describe recent studies of tolerance, resistance and persistence, outlining how a clear and distinct definition for each phenotype can be developed from these findings. We propose a framework for classifying the drug response of bacterial strains according to these definitions that is based on the measurement of the MIC together with a recently defined quantitative indicator of tolerance, the minimum duration for killing (MDK). Finally, we discuss genes that are associated with increased tolerance - the 'tolerome' - as targets for treating tolerant bacterial strains.
Indexed as
Identifiers
27080241What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.