Fig 1.
Antimicrobial-induced DNA damage in bacterial and fungal pathogens.
Sublethal doses of antimicrobial agents can directly or indirectly damage DNA in bacteria and fungi. In bacteria, DNA damage may lead to up-regulation of an SOS response, error-prone translesion DNA synthesis, or other stress responses that result in mutations including single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and the movement of mobile genetic elements. In fungi, treatment with antifungals can lead to DNA damage, resulting in homologous recombination and loss of heterozygosity (LOH), or other cellular stress responses, leading to unequal chromosomal segregation during mitosis and aneuploidy. Bacteria and fungi are not to scale.