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Streptomycin and nalidixic acid elevate the spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate in Escherichia coli

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Abstract

Since antibiotic resistance is a growing public health problem worldwide, it is important to understand how antibiotics and spontaneous mutations cooperate and shape the genome-wide mutation rate and spectrum. Here, we quantitatively evaluate genome-wide mutational profiles of Escherichia coli after long-term subinhibitory exposure to a broad-spectrum (streptomycin) and a narrow-spectrum antibiotic (nalidixic acid), using a mutation accumulation design combined with whole-genome resequencing of replicate lines as a mutagenicity test. We determined that, while the genome-wide mutation rate is slightly higher in the streptomycin-treated lines compared to the control lines, there is a significant increase in the nalidixic acid-treated lines. Our findings suggest that both broad and narrow-spectrum antibiotics may elevate the mutation rates in E. coli, but mechanisms of action may affect the consequence, thus contribute to accelerating the rate of adaptation and conferring antibiotic resistance.

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Raw data were deposited in the NCBI SRA under Bio Project ID of PRJNA630872.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Arif Duyar and Merve Dokez for technical support. This work supported by Hacettepe University Research Fund (Grant Number FBB-2017-15738 to S.K.).

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Hacettepe University Research Fund (Grant Number FBB-2017-15738 to S.K.).

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Correspondence to Sibel Kucukyildirim Celik.

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Ozdemirel, H.O., Ulusal, D. & Kucukyildirim Celik, S. Streptomycin and nalidixic acid elevate the spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate in Escherichia coli. Genetica 149, 73–80 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10709-021-00114-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10709-021-00114-w

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