Chemical communication of antibiotic resistance by a highly resistant subpopulation of bacterial cells

Description

Omar El-Halfawy, a PhD candidate, and Professo Miguel A. Valvano have discovered that some species of bacteria may help others in surviving in the presence of bactericidal antibtiotics. Survival depends on hypersecretion of the polyamine putrescine and a small protein, YceI, both of which protect neighboring bacteria of the same and different species from antibiotic killins.