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Research Articles
ScienceAsia 33 (2007): 197-206 |doi: 10.2306/scienceasia1513-1874.2007.33.197
Dynamic Processes Permitting Stable Coexistence of
Antimicrobial Resistant and Non-Resistant Organisms in
a Gastrointestinal Tract Model
Tippawan Puttasontiphota, Yongwimon Lenburya*, Chontita Rattanakula, Sahattaya
Rattanamongkonkulb, John R. Hotchkissc and Philip S. Crooked
ABSTRACT: In this paper, bacteria-antibiotic dynamics in a gastrointestinal tract exposed to antimicrobial selection pressure is modeled as occurring in a continuous chemostat. Two populations of microorganisms, one sensitive and the other resistant to an inhibitor, namely an antibiotic, compete for a single limiting resource. It is shown that conditions exist whereby the two types of bacteria can persist. Application of the singular perturbation analysis also yields delineating conditions on the “effective” antibiotic level that encode information on the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and the minimum antibiotic concentration (MAC), which are extremely important parameters commonly used to quantify the activity of antibiotics against a given bacterium.
KEYWORDS: gastrointestinal tract model, antimicrobial resistance, continuous chemostat, singular perturbation.
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a Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University,Bangkok, 10400, Thailand.
b Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Burapha University,Chonburi, 20131, Thailand.
c Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh,Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
d Biomathematics Study Group, Department of Mathematics,Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240, USA.
* Corresponding author, E-mail: scylb@mahidol.ac.th
Received 7 Jun 2006,
Accepted 22 Dec 2006
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