Antibiotic tolerance indicative for persistence is pervasive among clinical Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates and shows strong condition dependence - dataset

The dataset is linked to the article entitled 'Antibiotic tolerance indicative for persistence is pervasive among clinical <em>Streptococcus pneumoniae</em> isolates and shows strong condition dependence' with following abstract. <em>Streptococcus pneumoniae</em> is an important human pathogen, being one of the most common causes of community-acquired pneumonia and otitis media. Antibiotic resistance in <em>S. pneumoniae</em> is an emerging problem as it depletes our arsenal of effective drugs. In addition, persistence also contributes to the antibiotic crisis in many other pathogens, yet, in <em>S. pneumonia</em>e little is known about antibiotic-tolerant persisters and robust experimental means are lacking. Persister cells are phenotypic variants that exist as a subpopulation within a clonal culture. Being tolerant to lethal antibiotics, they underly the chronic nature of a variety of infections and even help in acquiring genetic resistance. Here, we set out to identify and characterize persistence in <em>S. pneumoniae. </em>Specifically, we followed different strategies to overcome the self-limiting nature of<em> S. pneumoniae </em>as confounding factor in the prolonged monitoring of antibiotic survival needed to study persistence. In optimized conditions, we identified genuine persisters in various growth phases and for four relevant antibiotics through biphasic survival dynamics and heritability assays. Finally, we detected a high variety in antibiotic survival levels across a diverse collection of <em>S. pneumoniae</em> clinical isolates, which assumes that a high natural diversity in persistence is widely present in <em>S. pneumoniae</em>. Collectively, this proof-of-concept significantly progresses the understanding of the importance of antibiotic persistence in<em> S. pneumoniae</em> infections which will set stage for characterizing its relevance to clinical outcomes and advocates for increased attention to the phenotype in both fundamental and clinical research.