Speaker:
Title:
Sensitizing Tolerant Bacteria to Beta-lactam Antibiotics
Abstract:
Bacterial tolerance to antibiotic killing can lead to chronic, costly infections, from which resistance may emerge. Here we show that metabolic stimulation sensitizes tolerant bacteria to beta-lactam antibiotics, one of our oldest and most widely used classes of antimicrobials. We demonstrate that supplementation with D-amino acids further potentiates beta-lactam lethality, and that this combination approach can be coupled with beta-lactamase inhibitors to sensitize and treat tolerant cultures of resistant pathogens.