Increased proportion of growth-arrested bacilli in acidic pH adaptation promotes Mycobacterium tuberculosis treatment survival

Abstract

The ability of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) to adapt its growth behavior in response to host environments promotes survival against immune and drug stressors. However, how these behaviors shift at the single-cell level remains poorly understood. Here, we show that Mtb adapts to acidic conditions by increasing the proportion of bacteria in a growth-arrested state, rather than uniformly slowing the growth rate of the entire population. This non-growing subpopulation exhibits greater tolerance to ethambutol. Clinical strains displayed higher proportions of growth-arrested cells under both neutral and acidic conditions, suggesting that growth arrest serves as a bet-hedging strategy during infection. Though the PhoPR two-component system contributes to regulating this non-growing state, we show that it is a partial regulator of the non-growing bacterial subpopulation and that additional transcriptional regulators are involved. Our study demonstrates that non-growing subpopulations of Mtb provide fitness benefits and are an active adaptation to environmental cues and not a passive consequence of stressors.