Exploiting evolutionary trade-offs to combat antibiotic resistance

Antibiotic resistance frequently evolves through fitness trade-offs in which the genetic alterations that confer resistance to a drug can also cause growth defects in resistant cells. Here, we use tavaborole-resistant E. coli to demonstrate that antibiotic-resistant cells can be efficiently inhibited by increasing the fitness costs associated with drug-resistance evolution. This finding may lead to a new approach for combating therapeutic resistance, prolonging the effectiveness of drugs and enabling the use of drugs that are no longer effective due to the rapid evolution of resistance.