Fitness Landscape of Antibiotic Tolerance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilms

Bacteria in biofilms have higher antibiotic tolerance than their planktonic counterparts. A major outstanding question is the degree to which the biofilm-specific cellular state and its constituent genetic determinants contribute to this hyper-tolerant phenotype. Here, using genome-wide functional profiling of a complex, heterogeneous mutant population of Pseudomonas aeruginosa MPAO1, we identified large sets of mutations that contribute to antibiotic tolerance predominantly in the biofilm or planktonic setting only. Our mixed population-based experimental design recapitulated the complexity of natural biofilms and, unlike previous studies, revealed clinically observed behaviors including the emergence of quorum sensing-deficient mutants. Our study revealed a substantial contribution of the cellular state to the antibiotic tolerance of biofilms, providing a rational foundation for the development of novel therapeutics against P. aeruginosa biofilm-associated infections. This dataset compares the expression of SAH108, a strain with enhanced antibiotic tolerance in the biofilm state, to expression in wild-type strains. We compared the expression of two biological replicates from strain SAH108 to samples from three wild-type, reference strains. All samples were collected from exponentially-growing planktonic cultures.