The biological cost of mutational antibiotic resistance: any practical conclusions?
Introduction
There are several reasons to study how antibiotic resistance affects bacterial fitness. For example, the analysis of antibiotic resistance development has allowed, both in natural settings and in the laboratory, real-time studies of the effect of fitness and mutation parameters on the rate and trajectory of adaptive evolution in response to novel selection pressures. From a medical perspective, biological costs are important to determine, if we wish to predict resistance development and to evaluate interventions to reduce resistance. Several theoretical and experimental studies have shown that the cost of resistance is a main determinant of both the rate and extent of resistance development whilst under a given antibiotic pressure, and the rate by which resistance declines if antibiotic use is reduced [1, 2]. Thus, to evaluate the impact of interventions in order to reduce antibiotic resistance, quantitative models that include fitness parameters for the susceptible and resistant bacteria are required. At present, the actual values for these fitness parameters are in many cases unknown. Another motivation comes from drug development. Pharmaceutical companies generally judge the likelihood of resistance development against a new drug by focusing on the mutation rate to resistance, assuming that this rate is a major determinant of resistance development in clinical settings (e.g. see [3]). Even though mutation rates influence the rate of resistance development, the biological cost of resistance might be a more relevant predictor of the risk for resistance development. Thus, even though resistant mutants might form at a high rate, if the resistance severely reduces fitness, the frequency of resistant mutants might not rise in in the population [1, 2]. A rational antibiotic design strategy is therefore to identify targets for which the resistance mechanism has the most negative effect on fitness. In this review, which focuses on reports published from 2004–2006, the author discusses the difficulties with measuring and interpreting fitness costs, the impact of fitness on resistance development and some research areas where we need to increase our knowledge.
Section snippets
Difficulties with cost determinations and their interpretation
The fitness costs of antibiotic resistance are typically assessed by determining in isogenic strains if the resistance results in a reduced growth rate in vitro, in animals or in humans [1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19•, 20, 21•]. However, resistant bacteria isolated from clinical settings often have an undefined genetic basis for their antibiotic resistance and fitness and it is in this real world that the relevance of laboratory-based fitness cost measurements will
A bleak future for reversibility?
Even though it is widely believed that the costs found to be associated with many resistances might allow the more fit susceptible bacteria to out-compete the resistant ones when antibiotic pressure is reduced, this idea has only been tested in a few clinical studies with non-conclusive results [28, 29, 30]. Instead, the currently available data on the biological costs suggests that antibiotic resistance might be less easily reversed than previously anticipated, and the expected rate and extent
Relevant experimental measurements of costs
To assess the conditionality of the fitness effects, biological cost measurements need to be performed under as many conditions as possible and, in particular, under conditions similar to the clinical situation. Thus, competition, colonization and transmission studies in human volunteers are likely to give us the most relevant parameter values. Obviously such studies cannot be performed with many pathogens, but often they can be performed with non-pathogenic relatives or in animal models. An
Conclusions
The most important medical implication emerging from studies of the fitness costs of resistance is that the resistant clones are unlikely to disappear even if we reduce antibiotic use. Thus, reversibility studies at both the individual and community level indicate that often resistant bacteria are able to persist for a long time, even if no antibiotic selective pressure is present. Compensatory evolution, cost-free mutations and co-selection of resistance markers provide likely explanations for
Update
A recent study in M. tuberculosis shows that even though rifampin resistance is associated with a fitness cost, in antibiotic-treated patients resistant strains with no or low fitness reduction are often selected [48•].
References and recommended reading
Papers of particular interest, published within the annual period of review, have been highlighted as:
• of special interest
•• of outstanding interest
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council, the European Commission Frame Work Programs 5 and 6, Uppsala University and AFA Research Fund. The author thanks his co-workers for comments and support.
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