Combatting persister cells: The daunting task in post-antibiotics era
Yidan Zhou,
Hebin Liao,
Linsen Pei,
Yingying Pu
Affiliations
Yidan Zhou
Department of Clinical Laboratory, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430071, China; The State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Basic Science of Stomatology (Hubei- MOST) & Key Laboratory of Oral Biomedicine Ministry of Education, School & Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China; Medical Research Institute, School of Medicine, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China; Frontier Science Center for Immunology and Metabolism, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China
Hebin Liao
The State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Basic Science of Stomatology (Hubei- MOST) & Key Laboratory of Oral Biomedicine Ministry of Education, School & Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China; Medical Research Institute, School of Medicine, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China; Frontier Science Center for Immunology and Metabolism, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China
Linsen Pei
The State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Basic Science of Stomatology (Hubei- MOST) & Key Laboratory of Oral Biomedicine Ministry of Education, School & Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China; Medical Research Institute, School of Medicine, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China; Frontier Science Center for Immunology and Metabolism, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China
Yingying Pu
The State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Basic Science of Stomatology (Hubei- MOST) & Key Laboratory of Oral Biomedicine Ministry of Education, School & Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China; Medical Research Institute, School of Medicine, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China; Frontier Science Center for Immunology and Metabolism, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China; Corresponding author. The State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Basic Science of Stomatology (Hubei- MOST) & Key Laboratory of Oral Biomedicine Ministry of Education, School & Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China.
Over the years, much attention has been drawn to antibiotic resistance bacteria, but drug inefficacy caused by a subgroup of special phenotypic variants – persisters – has been largely neglected in both scientific and clinical field. Interestingly, this subgroup of phenotypic variants displayed their power of withstanding sufficient antibiotics exposure in a mechanism different from antibiotic resistance. In this review, we summarized the clinical importance of bacterial persisters, the evolutionary link between resistance, tolerance, and persistence, redundant mechanisms of persister formation as well as methods of studying persister cells. In the light of our recent findings of membrane-less organelle aggresome and its important roles in regulating bacterial dormancy depth, we propose an alternative approach for anti-persister therapy. That is, to force a persister into a deeper dormancy state to become a VBNC (viable but non-culturable) cell that is incapable of regrowth. We hope to provide the latest insights on persister studies and call upon more research interest into this field.
