ArticleThe EMBO journal2018
Contact-dependent growth inhibition induces high levels of antibiotic-tolerant persister cells in clonal bacterial populations.
Article in The EMBO journal, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- From gut colonization to recurrence:Gut microbes · 2026Review
- A delivered DNase toxin creates population heterogeneity through transient intoxication of siblings.mBio · 2025Article
- Forms and mechanisms for Escherichia coli long-term survival in silanol-humate gels.Archives of microbiology · 2025Article
- A CRISPR-Cas9 system protecting E. coli against acquisition of antibiotic resistance genes.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Cell motility empowers bacterial contact weapons.The ISME journal · 2024Article
- Article
- Transcriptional repression in stochastic gene expression, patterning, and cell fate specification.Developmental biology · 2022Article
- Article
- Article
- An interbacterial DNA deaminase toxin directly mutagenizes surviving target populations.eLife · 2021Article
- Persistence as an Optimal Hedging Strategy.Biophysical journal · 2021Article
- Biofilms as Promoters of Bacterial Antibiotic Resistance and Tolerance.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Article
- Contact-Dependent Growth Inhibition in Bacteria: Do Not Get Too Close!International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Review
- A Quantitative Survey of Bacterial Persistence in the Presence of Antibiotics: Towards Antipersister Antimicrobial Discovery.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- RHS-elements function as type II toxin-antitoxin modules that regulate intra-macrophage replication of Salmonella Typhimurium.PLoS genetics · 2020Article
- Target highlights in CASP13: Experimental target structures through the eyes of their authors.Proteins · 2019Article
- Leveraging Peptide Substrate Libraries to Design Inhibitors of Bacterial Lon Protease.ACS chemical biology · 2019Article
- Spatial Organization of Expanding Bacterial Colonies Is Affected by Contact-Dependent Growth Inhibition.Current biology : CB · 2019Article
- Peer pressure from a Proteus mirabilis self-recognition system controls participation in cooperative swarm motility.PLoS pathogens · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Bacterial populations can use bet-hedging strategies to cope with rapidly changing environments. One example is non-growing cells in clonal bacterial populations that are able to persist antibiotic treatment. Previous studies suggest that persisters arise in bacterial populations either stochastically through variation in levels of global signalling molecules between individual cells, or in response to various stresses. Here, we show that toxins used in contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) create persisters upon direct contact with cells lacking sufficient levels of CdiI immunity protein, which would otherwise bind to and neutralize toxin activity. CDI-mediated persisters form through a feedforward cycle where the toxic activity of the CdiA toxin increases cellular (p)ppGpp levels, which results in Lon-mediated degradation of the immunity protein and more free toxin. Thus, CDI systems mediate a population density-dependent bet-hedging strategy, where the fraction of non-growing cells is increased only when there are many cells of the same genotype. This may be one of the mechanisms of how CDI systems increase the fitness of their hosts.
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