In vitro selective antibiotic concentrations of beta-lactams for penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae populations.

Therapeutic regimens containing beta-lactam antibiotics are selecting penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae populations all over the world. The selective pressure after 4 h of exposure to different concentrations of amoxicillin, cefixime, cefuroxime, and cefotaxime for low-level or high-level penicillin-resistant S. pneumoniae was evaluated in an in vitro model with mixed populations with penicillin susceptibilities of 0.015, 0.5, 1, and 2 micrograms/ml. The antibiotic concentration selecting for low-level resistance strongly reduced the susceptible population. Increasing antibiotic concentrations tended to decrease the total proportion of penicillin-resistant bacteria because of reduced numbers of the low-level-resistant population. The antibiotic concentration selecting for high-level resistance produced fewer resistant populations, but most of the organisms selected represented high-level resistance. In general, amoxicillin was a good selector for the low-level-resistant population and a poor selector for high-level resistance; cefuroxime and cefotaxime were poor selectors for low-level resistance and better selectors than amoxicillin for high-level penicillin resistance. Cefixime was the best selector of low-level penicillin resistance. When only resistant populations were mixed, the strains with high-level resistance were selected even at low antibiotic concentrations. Determination of the effects of selective antibiotic concentrations on mixed cultures of bacteria expressing different antibiotic resistance levels may help researchers to understand the ecology and epidemiology of penicillin-resistant S. pneumoniae populations.