Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 356, Issue 6335, Pages 309-311Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf4762
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Funding
- Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [P28844]
- Swiss National Science Foundation [31003A_149267]
- Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia de Mexico (CONACYT)
- Pew Foundation Latin American Fellows Program
- Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [P28844] Funding Source: Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) [31003A_149267] Funding Source: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF)
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The molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypic variation in isogenic bacterial populations remain poorly understood. We report that AcrAB-TolC, the main multidrug efflux pump of Escherichia coli, exhibits a strong partitioning bias for old cell poles by a segregation mechanism that is mediated by ternary AcrAB-TolC complex formation. Mother cells inheriting old poles are phenotypically distinct and display increased drug efflux activity relative to daughters. Consequently, we find systematic and long-lived growth differences between mother and daughter cells in the presence of subinhibitory drug concentrations. A simple model for biased partitioning predicts a population structure of long-lived and highly heterogeneous phenotypes. This straightforward mechanism of generating sustained growth rate differences at subinhibitory antibiotic concentrations has implications for understanding the emergence of multidrug resistance in bacteria.
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