Abstract
Multidrug Transporters (MDTs) are major contributors to the acquisition and maintenance of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), a growing public health threat of broad concern. Despite the large number of MDTs, the overwhelming majority of the studies performed thus far in Gram-negative bacteria emphasize the supremacy of the AcrAB-TolC complex. To unveil the potential role of other MDTs we studied the behavior of a null AcrB Escherichia coli strain when challenged with chloramphenicol, a bacteriostatic antibiotic. We found that such a strain developed an extremely high-level of resistance to chloramphenicol, cross resistance to quinolones and erythromycin and displayed high levels of expression of the single component MFS transporter MdfA and multiple TolC-dependent transporters. The results suggest that the high versatility of the whole ensemble of transporters, the bacterial Effluxome, is an essential part of a strategy of survival in everchanging, at times noxious, environments. The concept of a functional Effluxome presents an alternative to the existing paradigms in the field and provides novel targets for the search for inhibitors of transporters as adjuvants of existing antibiotics.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e0218828 |
Journal | PLoS ONE |
Volume | 14 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Feb 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2019 Alon Cudkowicz, Schuldiner. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.