Overview

• Rutgers Health researchers demonstrated that ciprofloxacin depletes bacterial ATP and NADH, imposing severe bioenergetic stress.
• Under this energy crisis, E. coli cells increase respiration rates, producing excess reactive oxygen species that drive persister cell formation.
• Reactive oxygen–induced DNA damage and error-prone repair mechanisms enable stressed bacteria to reach high-level antibiotic resistance faster.
• Preliminary tests indicate that gentamicin and ampicillin also trigger similar metabolic stress responses in bacteria.
• The team recommends screening antibiotics for metabolic side effects, pairing drugs with stress-response inhibitors or ROS scavengers, and revising dosing strategies to limit resistance acceleration.