The Staphylococcus aureus small-colony variant (SCV) phenotype has been associated with relapsing and antibiotic-refractory infections. However, little is known about the activities of antibiotics on clinical SCVs. Here, we demonstrated that SCVs without detectable auxotrophies were at least as susceptible to most β-lactam and non-β-lactam antibiotics in vitro as their corresponding clonally identical strains with a normal phenotype. After prolonged incubation, a regrowth phenomenon has been observed in gradient diffusion inhibition zones irrespective of the strains' phenotype.
Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus; aminoglycosides; antibiotic resistance; daptomycin; lincosamides; linezolid; resistance; small-colony variants; susceptibility; trimethoprim; β-lactam antibiotics.
Copyright © 2018 American Society for Microbiology.