The pth gene as a clinical biomarker for bacterial antibiotic tolerance

Nevertheless, clinical laboratories rarely quantify persister fractions of pathogenic bacteria at present, due to limited detection approaches and scarce available detection biomarkers. In our prior study, we identified a transposon insertion mutant of the essential gene pth, which exhibited drastically elevated persister levels.

We further discovered seven distinct point mutations of pth among clinical isolates, among which the G103S variant completely abolished the full activity of wild-type Pth protein. Quantification of persister fractions in clinical strains revealed that isolates carrying the G103S mutation harbored significantly higher persister proportions than wild-type counterparts. This mutation can act as a biomarker for evaluating persister levels in clinical bacterial isolates.