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JAC Advance Access published online on May 30, 2006
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, doi:10.1093/jac/dkl225
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Received March 8, 2006
Accepted May 9, 2006

Brief report

Mechanisms of the post-antibiotic effects induced by rifampicin and gentamicin in Escherichia coli

William Stubbings 1, Julieanne Bostock 1, Eileen Ingham 1, and Ian Chopra 1 *

1 Antimicrobial Research Centre and Research Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Ian Chopra, E-mail: i.chopra{at}leeds.ac.uk


  Abstract

Objectives: The mechanisms by which antibiotics induce a post-antibiotic effect in susceptible bacteria are poorly understood. To explore the mechanisms more fully we examined the recovery of macromolecular synthesis in Escherichia coli during gentamicin- and rifampicin-induced post-antibiotic effects.

Methods: E. coli ATCC 25922 was exposed to rifampicin and to gentamicin at 5x MIC for 60 min to induce post-antibiotic effects. The antibiotics were then removed from the culture medium by washing the cells. The rates of DNA, RNA and protein synthesis during the post-antibiotic effect and recovery periods were subsequently determined by measuring the incorporation of radiolabelled uridine, thymidine and leucine into trichloroacetic acid precipitable material.

Results: Recovery of E. coli ATCC 25922 from the rifampicin-induced post-antibiotic effect coincided with the recovery of RNA and protein synthesis. Recovery from the gentamicin-induced post-antibiotic effect coincided with the recovery of protein synthesis.

Conclusions: These data support the hypothesis that antibiotic molecules retained in the cell mediate the post-antibiotic effect by suppressing the biochemical activity of their molecular targets.

Keywords: E. coli; PAE; macromolecular synthesis; antibiotic action.
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