The postantibiotic effect (PAE) refers to the temporary suppression of bacterial growth following transient antibiotic treatment. This effect has been observed for decades for a wide variety of antibiotics and microbial species. However, despite empirical observations, a mechanistic understanding of this phenomenon is lacking. Using a combination of modeling and quantitative experiments, we show that the PAE can be explained by the temporal dynamics of drug detoxification in individual cells after an antibiotic is removed from the extracellular environment. These dynamics are dictated by both the export of the antibiotic and the intracellular titration of the antibiotic by its target. This mechanism is generally applicable for antibiotics with different modes of action. We further show that efflux inhibition is effective against certain antibiotic motifs, which may help explain mixed cotreatment success.

中文翻译：

---

药物排毒的动力学解释了抗生素的作用。

抗生素后效应（PAE）是指在短暂抗生素治疗后暂时抑制细菌生长。数十年来，对于多种抗生素和微生物物种，均已观察到这种效果。但是，尽管有经验观察，对这种现象仍缺乏机械的理解。使用建模和定量实验相结合，我们表明，PAE可以通过从细胞外环境中去除抗生素后单个细胞中药物解毒的时间动态来解释。这些动态是由抗生素的输出和由其靶标对抗生素的细胞内滴定所决定的。该机制通常适用于具有不同作用方式的抗生素。