Researchers share an analysis of the interplay between antibiotic dose, mode of action, and bacterial competition in the evolution of antibiotic resistance in this recent study 🔎
plos.io/3qO7iNH
ALT Fig 1. Population dynamics of the resistant (orange) and sensitive (black) strains.
The sensitive subpopulation declines almost deterministically during treatment, which is administered for seven days (gray shaded region). At the same time the resistant subpopulation, if it survives, increases in size. There is strong variation between the resistant growth curves because of stochastic birth and death events. Non-surviving trajectories are omitted. After treatment, both subpopulations grow until the overall pathogen population reaches the carrying capacity, which happens approximately two days after the end of treatment when the resistant subpopulation reaches its maximum. The overall size of the resistant subpopulation at that point shows variation among the ten sample trajectories, again because of demographic stochasticity. This variation carries over to the time at which the resistant subpopulation is outcompeted by the sensitive subpopulation in the absence of antibiotic treatment.