Persister control by leveraging dormancy associated reduction of antibiotic efflux
Fig 2
Persister formation led to reduced efflux pump activities.
(A) Induction of persister formation led to increased EtBr accumulation. Measurements were performed with a fluorescence microplate reader with excitation at 360 nm. (B-E) Flow cytometry analysis of EtBr staining. (B) EtBr stained uninduced E. coli Top10/pRJW1 (top) and EtBr stained arabinose induced E. coli Top10/pRJW1 (bottom). Induced E. coli Top10/pRJW1 had 13 ± 2.2% of the population shifted to stronger fluorescence, indicating more EtBr accumulation. (C) EtBr stained uninduced E. coli Top10 pBAD (top) and EtBr-stained arabinose induced E. coli Top10/pBAD (empty vector) (bottom). (D) E. coli ΔacrB without (top) and with (bottom) EtBr staining. (E) E. coli pUC19-acrB without (top) and with (bottom) EtBr staining. (F) Inactivation of efflux pumps sensitized normal cells to minocycline. Means ± SE are shown (n = 3). * p-value≤ 0.05, ** p-value ≤ 0.01, *** p-value ≤ 0.001, ****p-value ≤ 0.0001.