Efflux only impacts drug accumulation in actively growing cells

Abstract

For antibiotics with intracellular targets, effective treatment of bacterial infections requires the drug to accumulate to a high concentration inside cells. Bacteria produce a complex cell envelope and possess drug-export efflux pumps to limit drug accumulation inside cells. Decreasing cell envelope permeability and increasing efflux pump activity can reduce intracellular accumulation of antibiotics, and are commonly seen in antibiotic resistant strains. Here, we show that the balance between influx and efflux differs depending on bacterial growth phase in Gramnegative bacteria. Accumulation of the model fluorescent drug, ethidium bromide (EtBr) was measured in S. Typhimurium SL1344 (wild-type) and efflux deficient ({Delta}acrB) strains during growth. In SL1344, EtBr accumulation remained low, regardless of growth phase and did not correlate with acrAB transcription. EtBr accumulation in {Delta}acrB was high in exponential phase but dropped sharply later in growth, with no significant difference to SL1344 in stationary phase. Low EtBr accumulation in stationary phase was not due to the upregulation of other efflux pumps, but instead, due to decreased permeability of the envelope in stationary phase. RNAseq identified changes in expression of several pathways that remodel the envelope in stationary phase, leading to lower permeability. This study shows that efflux is only important for maintaining low drug accumulation in actively growing cells, and that envelope permeability is the predominant factor dictating the rate of drug entry in stationary phase cells. This conclusion means that (i) antibiotics with intracellular targets may be less effective in complex non-growing or slow-growing bacterial infections where intracellular accumulation may be low, (ii) efflux inhibitors may be successful in potentiating the activity of existing antibiotics, but potentially only for bacterial infections where cells are actively growing and (iii) the remodelling of the cell envelope prior to stationary phase could provide novel drug targets.