"Antibiotic resistance evolution: Assessing the effect of different drug doses and types"Czuppon, PeterThe use of an antibiotic creates a beneficial environment for the evolution of resistant bacteria. The dosage of the antibiotic drug plays an important role during this process. Previous studies have shown that the optimal dose to limit resistance evolution will either be the highest or the lowest drug concentration possible to administer; however, no analytical results exist that help decide between these two extremes. We developed a stochastic model of bacterial dynamics under antibiotic treatment to address this gap. We explore various scenarios of density regulation (bacterial density affects cell birth or death rates), and antibiotic modes of action (biostatic or biocidal). Using branching processes, we obtain an analytical prediction of the antibiotic concentration that maximizes the survival probability of resistant cells until the end of antibiotic treatment, which we then extend to compute the overall probability of resistance evolution during treatment. |
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