Inhibition of bacterial growth by antibiotics : A minimal model

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Ledoux, Barnabe, Lacoste, David
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Ledoux, Barnabe
Lacoste, David
author_facet Ledoux, Barnabe
Lacoste, David
contents Growth in bacterial populations generally depends on the environment (availability and quality of nutrients, presence of a toxic inhibitor, product inhibition..). Here, we build a model to describe the action of a bacteriostatic antibiotic, assuming that this drug inhibits an essential autocatalytic cycle involved in the cell metabolism. The model recovers known growth laws, can describe various types of antibiotics and confirms the existence of two distinct regimes of growth-dependent susceptibility, previously identified only for ribosome targeting antibiotics. Interestingly, below a certain threshold in terms of antibiotic concentration, a coexistence between two values of the growth rate is possible, which has also been observed experimentally. Interesting extensions of the model include the antagonistic effect of two drugs targeting different autocatalytic cycles or the production of an inhibiting waste.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_02944
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Inhibition of bacterial growth by antibiotics : A minimal model
Ledoux, Barnabe
Lacoste, David
Biological Physics
Growth in bacterial populations generally depends on the environment (availability and quality of nutrients, presence of a toxic inhibitor, product inhibition..). Here, we build a model to describe the action of a bacteriostatic antibiotic, assuming that this drug inhibits an essential autocatalytic cycle involved in the cell metabolism. The model recovers known growth laws, can describe various types of antibiotics and confirms the existence of two distinct regimes of growth-dependent susceptibility, previously identified only for ribosome targeting antibiotics. Interestingly, below a certain threshold in terms of antibiotic concentration, a coexistence between two values of the growth rate is possible, which has also been observed experimentally. Interesting extensions of the model include the antagonistic effect of two drugs targeting different autocatalytic cycles or the production of an inhibiting waste.
title Inhibition of bacterial growth by antibiotics : A minimal model
topic Biological Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.02944