Scientists found the real reason for antibiotic ineffectiveness (Image Source: Freepik)
ANI/TPS, Tel Aviv. A new Israeli study is challenging one of microbiology's most firmly held beliefs that bacteria escape antibiotics primarily by becoming inactive. The study shows that antibiotic resistance is not a single biological phenomenon but arises from two fundamentally different growth-inhibiting states, a discovery that helps resolve years of contradictory results and opens up new ways to prevent recurring infections.
Antibiotics are designed to kill bacteria by disrupting the processes involved in growth and division. Yet in many infections, a small portion of the bacterial cells survive treatment and later trigger disease. This phenomenon is known as antibiotic stability. This is a major cause of treatment failure and disease relapse, even if the bacteria show no genetic resistance to the drugs.
captures only a part of reality
Its persistence for decades was mostly attributed to dormancy, the idea that bacteria stop growth in a controlled manner, entering a stable, sleep-like state that protects them from antibiotics. But new research led by Adi Rotem, a PhD student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, shows that this explanation only captures part of the reality.
The study shows that higher survival rates under antibiotics may arise from two different physiological states, not just differences in inactivity. A state consistent with the classic model of controlled growth arrest, in which bacteria actively slow down their metabolism and maintain internal stability. The second condition is fundamentally different: a disrupted, disordered growth arrest, in which cells survive by going into a dysfunctional state rather than shutting down in a controlled manner. These findings were recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.
Difficult to kill dormant cells
"We found that bacteria can escape antibiotics in two very different ways," Balaban said. Once you recognize that these are different situations, many of the contradictions suddenly begin to make sense.
In controlled conditions the bacteria deliberately enter a protected state. Since many antibiotics depend on active growth to be effective, it is difficult to kill these dormant cells. This mechanism has long been the dominant way of thinking about sustainability and has shaped experimental approaches in this field. However, the disrupted state challenges that notion.
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