Publisher Correction: Definitions and guidelines for research on antibiotic persistence

Nathalie Balaban (1) , Sophie Helaine (2) , Kim Lewis (3) , Martin Ackermann (4, 5) , Bree Aldridge (6) , Dan Andersson (7) , Mark Brynildsen (8) , Dirk Bumann (9) , Andrew Camilli (6) , James Collins (10, 11, 12) , Christoph Dehio (9) , Sarah Fortune (13) , Jean-Marc Ghigo (14) , Wolf-Dietrich Hardt (15, 16) , Alexander Harms (9) , Matthias Heinemann (17) , Deborah Hung (12) , Urs Jenal (9) , Bruce Levin (18) , Jan Michiels (19) , Gisela Storz (20) , Man-Wah Tan (21) , Tanel Tenson (22) , Laurence van Melderen (23) , Annelies Zinkernagel (24)

1 Racah Institute of Physics
2 MRC CMBI - Medical Research Council Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection [Londres, Royaume-Uni]
3 Northeastern University [Boston]
4 IBP - Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics [ETH Zürich]
5 EAWAG - Swiss Federal Insitute of Aquatic Science and Technology [Dübendorf]
6 Tufts University School of Medicine [Boston]
7 Uppsala University
8 Princeton University
9 Biozentrum [Basel, Suisse]
10 MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
11 Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering [Harvard University]
12 BROAD INSTITUTE - Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
13 Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
14 Génétique des Biofilms
15 ETH Zürich - Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [Zürich]
16 Institute of Microbiology [Zurich]
17 GBB - Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute
18 Emory University [Atlanta, GA]
19 VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology [Leuven, Belgium]
20 NICHD - Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
21 Genentech, Inc. [San Francisco]
22 Institute of technology
23 ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles
24 University hospital of Zurich [Zurich]

Increasing concerns about the rising rates of antibiotic therapy failure and advances in single-cell analyses have inspired a surge of research into antibiotic persistence. Bacterial persister cells represent a subpopulation of cells that can survive intensive antibiotic treatment without being resistant. Several approaches have emerged to define and measure persistence, and it is now time to agree on the basic definition of persistence and its relation to the other mechanisms by which bacteria survive exposure to bactericidal antibiotic treatments, such as antibiotic resistance, heteroresistance or tolerance. In this Consensus Statement, we provide definitions of persistence phenomena, distinguish between triggered and spontaneous persistence and provide a guide to measuring persistence. Antibiotic persistence is not only an interesting example of non-genetic single-cell heterogeneity, it may also have a role in the failure of antibiotic treatments. Therefore, it is our hope that the guidelines outlined in this article will pave the way for better characterization of antibiotic persistence and for understanding its relevance to clinical outcomes.

Keywords: Antibacterial drug resistance; Antibiotics; Antimicrobial resistance; Bacterial physiology

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Microbiology and Parasitology

Nathalie Balaban, Sophie Helaine, Kim Lewis, Martin Ackermann, Bree Aldridge, et al.. Publisher Correction: Definitions and guidelines for research on antibiotic persistence. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 2019, 17 (7), pp.441-448. ⟨10.1038/s41579-019-0196-3⟩. ⟨pasteur-02558489⟩