1 research outputs found
Side effects of antibiotics on genetic variability
In recent years, there has been accumulating evidence that antibiotics, besides their
antimicrobial action, potentially have a number of undesired side effects that can,
at least in some cases, promote genetic variability of bacteria. In addition to
resistant variants, antibiotics have also been shown to select mutator clones, thus
stimulating evolution towards further resistance. Furthermore, mutations, recombination
and horizontal gene transfer have been reported to be somehow affected
when bacteria are exposed to subinhibitory concentrations of certain antibiotics.
These findings may have implications for the use of antibiotics, because they may
have undesired side effects, such as enhancing antibiotic resistance evolution. Here
we present data supporting (or not) this fearsome possibility and discuss whether
this potential threat should be taken into considerationThis work was supported by Grants PI070215 and Spanish
Network for the Research in Infectious Diseases (REIPI
RD06/0008) from Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo
(MSC), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII). A.C. was supported by a fellowship (FI05/00569) from MSC-ISCIII.Peer reviewe