Microbial interactions affect the tempo and mode of antibiotic resistance evolution

Abstract

AbstractThe global rise of antibiotic resistance impedes the treatment of bacterial infections. To limit the emergence and evolution of antibiotic resistance it is important to understand how bacterial interactions in multispecies communities affect the course of evolution. We investigated how ecological interactions between microbes derived from polymicrobial urinary tract infections affect the tempo and mode of antibiotic resistance evolution. We show that for representative strains of three uropathogens,Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniaeandEnterococcus faecium,the rate and evolutionary trajectories towards antibiotic resistance depend on interactions with community members that mediate their growth and antibiotic tolerance. Replicate lineages of the same species evolved under similar ecological conditions show parallel evolutionary trajectories. Our findings demonstrate that bacterial interactions determine the evolutionary potential of antibiotic resistance evolution.