Impact of bacterial persisters on their host
Abstract
The rise of antibiotic failure poses a severe threat to global health. There is growing concern that this failure is not solely driven by stable antibiotic resistance but also by a subpopulation of transiently non-growing, antibiotic tolerant bacteria. These 'persisters' have been proposed to seed relapsing infections, an important clinical outcome of treatment failure - although definitive evidence for this direct link remains elusive. Recent advances in the field have revealed the complex nature of intra-host persisters which drive their high adaptability through biosynthetic activity. These features of persisters contribute to evolution of antimicrobial resistance and modulation of host immune responses, despite clinically efficacious treatment.
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Persistence is characterized by a biphasic killing curve, whereas tolerance is not.
“Importantly, persistence is characterized by a biphasic killing curve, whereas tolerance is not [109].”
From Insight into the Mechanisms and Clinical Relevance of Antifungal Heteroresistance (2025) · cites this paper as [109]
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Arastehfar, A., Daneshnia, F., Cabrera, N., Penalva-Lopez, S., Sarathy, J., Zimmerman, M., Shor, E., & Perlin, D. S. (2023) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-023-36882-6 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
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“Such phenotypes are marked by lower metabolic activities and by arrested or slow growth (1, 4, 34, 41).”
BackgroundInsight into the Mechanisms and Clinical Relevance of Antifungal Heteroresistance
Su, Y., Li, Y., Yi, Q., Xu, Y., Sun, T., & Li, Y. (2025) · Journal of Fungi · doi:10.3390/jof11020143 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“Importantly, persistence is characterized by a biphasic killing curve, whereas tolerance is not [109].”
- Authors
- Moldoveanu, A. L., Rycroft, J. A., & Helaine, S.
- Affiliations
- Imperial College London (GB)
- Harvard University (US)
- ORCID
- Moldoveanu, Ana L
- Venue
- Current Opinion in Microbiology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-02
- Volume
- 59
- Pages
- 65-71
- ISSN
- 1369-5274 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3082351315
- Cited by
- 44
- References
- 67
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 6
- FWCI
- 0.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Current Opinion in Microbiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Medical Research Council
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Bacterial Genetics and Biotechnology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Bacterial biofilms and quorum sensing
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › Antimicrobial Resistance in Staphylococcus
- Keywords
- persister cells, antibiotic tolerance, antibiotic resistance, infection relapse, treatment failure, biosynthesis, host immune response, antimicrobial resistance evolution
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Physiological, Animals, Anti-Bacterial Agents, Bacteria, Drug Resistance, Microbial, Humans, Host-Pathogen Interactions
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