Antifungal tolerance is a subpopulation effect distinct from resistance and is associated with persistent candidemia

Alexander Rosenberg, Iuliana V. Ene, Maayan Bibi, Shiri Zakin, Ella Shtifman Segal, Naomi Ziv, Alon M. Dahan, Arnaldo Lopes Colombo, Richard J. Bennett, Judith Berman*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

149 Scopus citations

Abstract

Tolerance to antifungal drug concentrations above the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) is rarely quantified, and current clinical recommendations suggest it should be ignored. Here, we quantify antifungal tolerance in Candida albicans isolates as the fraction of growth above the MIC, and find that it is distinct from susceptibility/resistance. Instead, tolerance is due to the slow growth of subpopulations of cells that overcome drug stress more efficiently than the rest of the population, and correlates inversely with intracellular drug accumulation. Many adjuvant drugs used in combination with fluconazole, a widely used fungistatic drug, reduce tolerance without affecting resistance. Accordingly, in an invertebrate infection model, adjuvant combination therapy is more effective than fluconazole in treating infections with highly tolerant isolates and does not affect infections with low tolerance isolates. Furthermore, isolates recovered from immunocompetent patients with persistent candidemia display higher tolerance than isolates readily cleared by fluconazole. Thus, tolerance correlates with, and may help predict, patient responses to fluconazole therapy.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2470
JournalNature Communications
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Dec 2018

Funding

FundersFunder number
TEVAS
Watson Institute
National Institutes of HealthAI081704
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious DiseasesR21AI139592
Pfizer
Gilead Sciences
Meso Scale Diagnostics
European Research Council340087
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo2017/02203-7
Astellas Pharma

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