Bacterial persistence: a winning strategy?

TL;DR

This paper introduces two stochastic models to explain bacterial persistence, showing that persistence can be an advantageous survival strategy under various conditions.

Contribution

It presents novel stochastic models with deterministic and random killing times to analyze bacterial persistence as a potential evolutionary strategy.

Findings

Persistence can be a successful survival strategy across different parameters.

Bacterial populations can switch between persistent and non-persistent states.

Models suggest persistence is advantageous even with frequent antibiotic treatments.

Abstract

It has long been known that antibiotic treatment will not completely kill off a bacteria population. For many species a small fraction of bacteria is not sensitive to antibiotics. These bacteria are said to persist. Recently it has been shown that persistence is not a permanent state and that in fact a bacterium can switch back and forth between persistent and non persistent states. We introduce two stochastic models for bacteria persistence. In both models there are mass killings of non persistent bacteria at certain times. The first model has deterministic killing times and the second one has random killing times. Both models suggest that persistence may be a successful strategy for a wide range of parameter values.