Research finds some bacteria travel an alternate path to antibiotic resistance

In a study with implications for efforts to halt the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, researchers at Princeton have identified a new, troubling path that some bacteria take toward resistance.

The discovery focused on bacteria called persisters, which are different from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Resistant bacteria possess genetic mutations that directly protect them against antibiotics. Persisters, on the other hand, while not genetically endowed with a better chance of survival than resistant mutants, can nevertheless tough it out because of certain genes they switch on or off before, during or after antibiotic treatment.