Toward prediction and control of antibiotic-resistance evolution

Abstract

The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a serious public concern. To deal with this problem, recent advances in technology and the use of laboratory evolution experiments have provided valuable information on the phenotypic and genotypic changes that occur during the evolution of resistance. These studies have demonstrated the existence of evolutionary constraints on the development of drug-resistance, which suggests predictability in its evolution. In this review, we focus on the possibility to predict and control the evolution of antibiotic resistance, based on quantitative analysis of phenotypic and genotypic changes observed in bacterial laboratory evolution. We emphasize the key challenges in evolutionary biology that will contribute to the development of appropriate treatment strategies for preventing resistance evolution.