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Published on: February 23, 2021
Extensive in vivo resilience of persistent Salmonella
Somedutta Barat1, Benjamin Steeb, Alain Mazé
1Focal Area Infection Biology, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Abstract:
Chronic infections caused by persistent pathogens represent an important health problem. Here, we establish a simple practical mouse Salmonella infection model for identifying bacterial maintenance functions that are essential for persistency. In this model, a substantial fraction of Salmonella survived even several days of treatment with a potent fluoroquinolone antibiotic indicating stringency of the model. Evaluation of twelve metabolic defects revealed dramatically different requirements for Salmonella during persistency as compared to acute infections. Disrupted synthesis of unsaturated/cyclopropane fatty acids was the only defect that resulted in rapid Salmonella clearance suggesting that this pathway might contain suitable targets for antimicrobial chemotherapy of chronic infection.
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