A synergistic interaction between cross-feeding and antibiotic detoxification further enhances community resistance to antibiotics.

Abstract

<p>Plotted are the coculture densities of susceptible and non-detoxifying resistant cells (no detoxification), or of susceptible and detoxifying resistant cells (with detoxification) at different times of colony growth (t = 0h, t = 12h, t = 24h, and t = 36h). As an example, the time points are labeled for the cross-feeding and no antibiotic case (top right panel). Note that although irrelevant for the ‘+ detoxification’ case, the top row is included in the figure to show the ‘no antibiotic’ baseline. The two species are seeded randomly and at 1:1. These results are robust to costs of resistance (<a href="http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006179#pcbi.1006179.s006" target="_blank">S6</a> and <a href="http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006179#pcbi.1006179.s007" target="_blank">S7</a> Figs).</p