Figure 1.

Hyper-mutator and persister frequencies increase over the duration of the infection. (a) Hyper-mutator frequencies of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (%) compiled from empirical studies. Shown are frequencies for samples from the environment or from patients with early (acute) infection, epidemic infection, onset of prolonged (chronic) infection and chronic infection. For studies marked with an asterisk (*) isolate level data are shown, as patient level data were not available (electronic supplementary material, text S1). (b) Persister numbers of multiple species as surviving cells (in %) after exposure to different AB classes (colour-coded according to the mode of action) from in vitro and in vivo studies assembled from the literature by Salcedo-Sora & Kell [14]. For comparison with clinical data, in vivo persister numbers from isolates from early and later infection stages with P. aeruginosa are shown separately (data from [15]) (see electronic supplementary material, text S1). (online version in colour.)