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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Microbiol. 2019 Jul 6;27(10):864–877. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2019.06.004

Figure 3. Antimicrobial Therapy Can Promote the Emergence of Drug Resistance in the Target Infection and in Off-Target Microbiota.

Figure 3.

Resistant microbes from either of these pools can cause future symptomatic infections in the initial patient or in another patient. Quantifying the relative importance of target versus off-target microbes as the source of resistant infections (arrow A versus arrow B) is critical to informing antimicrobial stewardship strategies. The relative importance of pathways A and B varies based on the ecology of the potential pathogen species.