Check out our latest publication!

Our newest publication, “Loss of DNA mismatch repair genes leads to acquisition of antibiotic resistance independent of secondary mutations”, is now available in PLoS Genetics.

In this paper, we identify antibiotic resistance that occurs when DNA mismatch repair genes are deleted. This resistance affects a broad range of antibiotics with different mechanisms and structures and doesn't require secondary mutations. It occurs in both E. coli and Salmonella. Our mechanistic investigations suggest that the resistance may involve low levels of lysis and increased rates of homeologous recombination for some antibiotics. The increased resistance of the mismatch repair mutants provides a mechanism for cells with an increased mutation rate to survive longer in antibiotics, increasing their likelihood of developing new, specific resistance alleles.

Congratulations to David Bautista (former Mitchell Lab Graduate Student), Joseph Carr (Mitchell Lab Postdoc and former Mitchell Lab Graduate Student), Cassidy Whitehead (former Mitchell Lab Undergraduate Student), and Brian Kostoch (Paredes-Sabja Lab Graduate Student) on this publication!

You can find the publication here: https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1012057