A recent report proposed a ‘persistence-if-stuff-happens’ hypothesis, i.e. selleck screening library persister cell formation is an inevitable process due to cellular errors that produce transient states of reduced replication and/or metabolic activity in a single bacterium [8]. Nevertheless, in the last years many attempts have been made to identify molecular factors involved in the development of a persister cell subpopulation. There is increasing evidence that toxin-antitoxin modules, quorum-sensing
molecules, global transcriptional regulators, and molecules of the stringent response like (p)ppGpp are involved in persister cell formation [4, 9–13]. Since the first report by Bigger in 1944 [1], bacterial persister buy ARN-509 cells have been described for a number of different species, including Escherichia coli[14], Staphylococcus aureus[14, 15], Pseudomonas aeruginosa[16], and Mycobacterium tuberculosis[17, 18]. For most of these bacterial species persister cells have also been found in biofilms, which contribute
to recalcitrant and/or recurrent infections after antibiotic therapy [4, 19–25]. Little is known about persister cell formation in streptococci [9, 26]. LGK-974 cost Within pathogenic streptococci, the zoonosis Streptococcus suis (S. suis) is of particular interest since it can cause very severe diseases, such as sepsis, meningitis and streptococcal toxic shock like syndrome in humans who are in close contact to pigs or pig products [27–30]. Notably, S. suis has been shown to be one of the most frequent causes of adult bacterial meningitis in Asian countries including Vietnam
and Thailand [31, 32]. S. suis infections are widely distributed in pigs, but can also occur in wildlife animals such as wild rabbits or wild boars [33, 34]. In pigs S. suis is a frequent early colonizer of the upper respiratory tract. In young pigs S. suis is also a major cause of meningitis, arthritis, and septicemia. Thus, S. suis infections are a major concern in the swine producing industry as they lead to high financial losses [35]. Since antibiotics are widely used to control S. suis infections (in humans and in animals), we examined the ability of S. suis to produce antibiotic tolerant persister cells. We analyzed the effects of the initial Adenosine bacterial growth phase on persister cell formation, the tolerance of these cells to different types of antibiotics, as well as persister cell levels of different S. suis strains and other human pathogenic streptococci. Our results show for the first time that S. suis forms high levels of persister cells that confer tolerance to a variety of antimicrobial compounds. We also present evidence that persister cell formation is not only found in S. suis but also in other streptococcal species. Results Identification of a multi-drug tolerant persister cell subpopulation in S.