Figure 5

Multidrug resistance vs. Multidrug tolerance. Antibiotics normally kill cells by corrupting a particular target or function, ultimately leading to cell death. Resistance mechanisms function by preventing an antibiotic from binding to its target. This allows cells to grow in the presence of an elevated concentration of antibiotic, thereby increasing the MIC. It is proposed that the mechanism of tolerance is based on the non-lethal inhibition of antibiotic targets by specific MDT proteins. If this is the case, blocking of essential targets of antibiotics will produce a partially dormant, multidrug tolerant cell without increasing the MIC.