The Inactivation of Enzymes Belonging to the Central Carbon Metabolism Is a Novel Mechanism of Developing Antibiotic Resistance

Fosfomycin is a bactericidal antibiotic, analogous to phosphoenolpyruvate, that exerts its activity by inhibiting the activity of MurA. This enzyme catalyzes the first step of peptidoglycan biosynthesis, the transfer of enolpyruvate from phosphoenolpyruvate to uridine-diphosphate-N-acetylglucosamine. Fosfomycin is increasingly being used, mainly for treating infections caused by Gram-negative multidrug-resistant bacteria. The mechanisms of mutational resistance to fosfomycin in Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, an opportunistic pathogen characterized by its low susceptibility to commonly used antibiotics, were studied in the current work. None of the mechanisms reported so far for other organisms, which include the production of fosfomycin-inactivating enzymes, target modification, induction of an alternative peptidoglycan biosynthesis pathway, and the impaired entry of the antibiotic, are involved in the acquisition of such resistance by this bacterial species. Instead, the unique cause of resistance in the mutants studied is the mutational inactivation of different enzymes belonging to the Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas central metabolism pathway. The amount of intracellular fosfomycin accumulation did not change in any of these mutants, showing that neither inactivation nor transport of the antibiotic is involved. Transcriptomic analysis also showed that the mutants did not present changes in the expression level of putative alternative peptidoglycan biosynthesis pathway genes or any related enzyme. Finally, the mutants did not present an increased phosphoenolpyruvate concentration that might compete with fosfomycin for its binding to MurA. On the basis of these results, we describe a completely novel mechanism of antibiotic resistance based on mutations of genes encoding metabolic enzymes. IMPORTANCE Antibiotic resistance has been largely considered a specific bacterial response to an antibiotic challenge. Indeed, its study has been mainly concentrated on mechanisms that affect the antibiotics (mutations in transporters, efflux pumps, and antibiotic-modifying enzymes, or their regulators) or their targets (i.e., target mutations, protection, or bypass). Usually, antibiotic resistance-associated metabolic changes were considered a consequence (fitness costs) and not a cause of antibiotic resistance. Herein, we show that alterations in the central carbon bacterial metabolism can also be the cause of antibiotic resistance. In the study presented here, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia acquires fosfomycin resistance through the inactivation of glycolytic enzymes belonging to the Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas pathway. Besides resistance to fosfomycin, this inactivation also impairs the bacterial gluconeogenic pathway. Together with previous work showing that antibiotic resistance can be under metabolic control, our results provide evidence that antibiotic resistance is intertwined with the bacterial metabolism.