Dense Bacterial Populations Create Mutant Breeding Grounds for Antibiotic Resistance

November 17, 2022 • by Esther Robards-Forbes

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have found a new contributor to antibiotic resistance: bacterial swarms that create ideal breeding grounds to evolve antibiotic resistance, even in the absence of antibiotics.

Overlapping pink and purple circles surrounded by dandelion seeds.

An artist's representation of bacterial swarms and the antibiotic resistant mutants that get pushed to the edges. Dandelions represent variants that emerge specially at the periphery, from where they disperse like seeds. In this issue, Bhattacharyya et al. report that efflux-proficient/DNA repair-deficient and highly motile bacteria migrate to the edge of the swarm where they spawn mutants that are resistant to antibiotics. These mutants thrive at the edge where competition for resources will be low, becoming founders of new swarms potentially armed to survive any environmental challenge. Illustration: Jo Wozniak of the Texas Advanced Computing Center.


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