Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites is rapidly emerging. Infections caused by resistant infectious agents are estimated to cause 10 million deaths and a $100 trillion economic burden by 2050. Antibiotic resistance and persistence enable a population of microbes to survive antimicrobials challenges even when they are fully susceptible in standard microbiological assays. What has emerged more recently is the sizeable cellular heterogeneity within an isogenic population which can be crucial in tackling the rise of antimicrobial resistance due to metabolic adaptions by individual pathogens. Therefore, new phenotyping tools are needed to study cell metabolism and physiology at a single-cell level.
Heterogeneous phenotypes of antimicrobial resistance and persistence within a microbial population present a multifaceted challenge in clinical settings. Population-averaged measurements can average out important information on cell-to-cell variance and mask the subpopulations that are the minority but are most crucial in recurrent infections. Recent advances in single-cell techniques that are applicable to study antimicrobial resistance and persistence at a single-cell level have been illuminating the aspects of cell heterogeneity and how they can contribute to improved clinical infection management.
In this Research Topic, we aim to showcases state-of-art research in single-cell techniques for studying antimicrobial resistance and heterogeneous persisters. The single-cell technologies include but are not limited to spectroscopic tools, for example, single-cell Raman spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy; single- or multi-reporter fluorescent probing; fluorescent-activated cell sorting (FACS); mass spectrometry; single-cell next-generation sequencing (NGS); advanced microscopy.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites is rapidly emerging. Infections caused by resistant infectious agents are estimated to cause 10 million deaths and a $100 trillion economic burden by 2050. Antibiotic resistance and persistence enable a population of microbes to survive antimicrobials challenges even when they are fully susceptible in standard microbiological assays. What has emerged more recently is the sizeable cellular heterogeneity within an isogenic population which can be crucial in tackling the rise of antimicrobial resistance due to metabolic adaptions by individual pathogens. Therefore, new phenotyping tools are needed to study cell metabolism and physiology at a single-cell level.
Heterogeneous phenotypes of antimicrobial resistance and persistence within a microbial population present a multifaceted challenge in clinical settings. Population-averaged measurements can average out important information on cell-to-cell variance and mask the subpopulations that are the minority but are most crucial in recurrent infections. Recent advances in single-cell techniques that are applicable to study antimicrobial resistance and persistence at a single-cell level have been illuminating the aspects of cell heterogeneity and how they can contribute to improved clinical infection management.
In this Research Topic, we aim to showcases state-of-art research in single-cell techniques for studying antimicrobial resistance and heterogeneous persisters. The single-cell technologies include but are not limited to spectroscopic tools, for example, single-cell Raman spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy; single- or multi-reporter fluorescent probing; fluorescent-activated cell sorting (FACS); mass spectrometry; single-cell next-generation sequencing (NGS); advanced microscopy.
