Senescence and antibiotic resistance in an age-structured population model
Loading...
Date
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Different theories have been proposed to understand the growing problem of antibiotic resistance of microbial populations. Here we investigate a model that is based on the hypothesis that senescence is a possible explanation for the existence of so-called persister cells which are resistant to antibiotic treatment. We study a chemostat model with a microbial population which is age-structured and show that if the growth rates of cells in different age classes are sufficiently close to a scalar multiple of a common growth rate, then the population will globally stabilize at a coexistence steady state. This steady state persists under an antibiotic treatment if the level of antibiotics is below a certain threshold; if the level exceeds this threshold, the washout state becomes a globally attracting equilibrium.
Description
Keywords
Citation
P. De Leenheer, J. Dockery, T. Gedeon and S. Pilyugin, “Senescence and antibiotic resistance in an age-structured population model”, J. Math. Biol., 61(4), pp. 475-499, (October 2010).