The fitness costs of antibiotic resistance mutations
Open accessAbstract
Antibiotic resistance is increasing in pathogenic microbial populations and is thus a major threat to public health. The fate of a resistance mutation in pathogen populations is determined in part by its fitness. Mutations that suffer little or no fitness cost are more likely to persist in the absence of antibiotic treatment. In this review, we performed a meta‐analysis to investigate the fitness costs associated with single mutational events that confer resistance. Generally, these mutations were costly, although several drug classes and species of bacteria on average did not show a cost. Further investigations into the rate and fitness values of compensatory mutations that alleviate the costs of resistance will help us to better understand both the emergence and management of antibiotic resistance in clinical settings.
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rpoB has approximately 80 mutational sites, with different classes of substitutions and sequence contexts, and each site may affect cell growth to a different extent.
“To make things more troublesome, rpoB has ~80 mutational sites [53], with different classes of substitutions and sequence contexts; each site may possibly affect cell growth to a different extent.”
From Efficient, robust, and versatile fluctuation data analysis using MLE MUtation Rate calculator (mlemur) (2023) · cites this paper as [53]
The Discussion (page unavailable) says some rpoB resistance mutations have low fitness costs while others can be costly, supporting the possibility of different effects across mutations. Our copy does not give approximately 80 mutational sites or describe the claimed substitution classes and sequence contexts. It also distinguishes competitive fitness from growth rate rather than equating the two. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Melnyk, A. H., Wong, A., & Kassen, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Ottawa (CA)
- Carleton University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Melnyk, Anita H.
- Venue
- Evolutionary Applications
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-08-27
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 273-283
- ISSN
- 1752-4563 (ISSN-L)
- 1752-4571
- PMC
- PMC4380921
- OpenAlex
- W2063558597
- Cited by
- 689
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 73 · 2025: 82 · 2024: 64 · 2023: 60 · 2022: 72 · 2021: 85 · 2020: 57 · 2019: 63 · 2018: 57 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 3.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Evolutionary Applications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Carleton University's Institutional Repository (MacOdrum Library, Carleton University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-298357-2009)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Medicine › Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology › Antibiotic Use and Resistance
- Keywords
- antibiotic resistance, fitness cost, resistance mutations, compensatory mutations, bacterial fitness, drug classes, pathogenic bacteria, antibiotic resistance management, antibiotic resistance emergence
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