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Mechanisms of Biofilm Development, Antibiotic Resistance and Tolerance and Their Role in Persistent Infections

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Antibacterial Drug Discovery to Combat MDR
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Abstract

Bacteria frequently form biofilms in response to stress factors that include exposure of planktonic cells to subinhibitory concentrations of antibiotics. When these attach to a surface, they switch to the biofilm mode of growth and undergo a phenotypic shift in behaviour. During this process, a large suite of genes are differentially regulated to develop a biofilm, which protect them from killing by antibiotics. This leads to the persistence of biofilm infections and the mechanisms used to protect bacteria in biofilms distinct from those that are responsible for conventional antibiotic resistance as well as tolerance. This tolerance to antibiotics is contributed to by multiple factors such as poor antibiotic penetration, nutrient limitation adaptive stress responses, slowed metabolism and the formation of persister cells. The present chapter deals with the introduction to biofilm and their mechanism to achieve antibiotic resistance as well as tolerance properties including their role in persistent infection with some advancement in biofilm research.

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Srivastava, D., Srivastava, S., Singh, P.C., Kumar, A. (2019). Mechanisms of Biofilm Development, Antibiotic Resistance and Tolerance and Their Role in Persistent Infections. In: Ahmad, I., Ahmad, S., Rumbaugh, K. (eds) Antibacterial Drug Discovery to Combat MDR. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9871-1_5

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