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Updated: Aug 5, 2026

Population and Single-Cell Analysis of Antibiotic Persistence in Escherichia coli
Published on: March 24, 2023
Pharmacokinetics determine persister formation in Escherichia coli
Khairy M Ali1, Ronan A Murphy1, Caroline Zanchi1
1Institut für Biologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Background:
Persisters are bacterial subpopulations of slow- or non-growing cells that are refractory to antimicrobials and can provide a starting point for antimicrobial resistance evolution. Several mechanisms of persister formation have been studied, and it has been shown that a short exposure to sublethal concentrations of antimicrobials can induce persistence.
Objectives:
We hypothesized that the pharmacokinetics-the temporal changes of drug concentrations under treatment-impact persister formation. We predicted that the slower the rate of drug concentration increase, the longer bacteria spend under sublethal drug concentrations, and the more persisters would form.
Methods:
Escherichia coli cells that were either primed or not with the antimicrobial peptide pexiganan were subjected to different pharmacokinetics of pexiganan using a set-up with small chemostats.
Results:
We found that faster pharmacokinetics resulted in lower persister numbers compared with slower pharmacokinetics. This finding provides proof of principle that pharmacokinetics, which can be influenced by treatment procedures, has consequences for persister formation.
Conclusions:
Our results suggest that faster pharmacokinetics could minimize persister numbers and hence lower the risks of bacterial infection relapse and resistance evolution.
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