Antibiotic tolerance among clinical isolates: mechanisms, detection, prevalence, and significance

SUMMARYAntibiotic treatment failures in the absence of resistance are not uncommon. Recently, attention has grown around the phenomenon of antibiotic tolerance, an underappreciated contributor to recalcitrant infections first detected in the 1970s. Tolerance describes the ability of a bacterial population to survive transient exposure to an otherwise lethal concentration of antibiotic without exhibiting resistance. With advances in genomics, we are gaining a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind tolerance, and several studies have sought to examine the clinical prevalence of tolerance. Attempts have also been made to assess the clinical significance of tolerance through