Antibiotics and efflux: combined spectrofluorimetry and mass spectrometry to evaluate the involvement of concentration and efflux activity in antibiotic intracellular accumulation.

Background: In Gram-negative bacteria, passing through the double membrane barrier to reach the inhibitory concentration inside the bacterium is a pivotal step for antibiotic activity. Spectrofluorimetry has been developed to follow fluoroquinolone accumulation inside bacteria using intrinsic bacterial fluorescence as an internal standard. However, adaptation for non-fluorescent antibiotics is needed; quantitative methods based on MS offer the possibility of expanding the detection range obtained by spectrofluorimetry.

Objectives: To validate, with spectrofluorimetry, the use of MS to measure antibiotic accumulation in cells and to determine the relationship between antibiotic concentrations and the amount of intrabacterial accumulation in different efflux backgrounds on the same batch of molecules.

Methods: Spectrofluorimetry was performed in parallel with MS on the same samples to measure the ciprofloxacin and fleroxacin accumulation in cells expressing various efflux pump levels. A microplate protocol was set up to determine the antibiotic accumulation as a function of external antibiotic concentrations.

Results: A correlation existed between the data obtained with spectrofluorimetry and MS, whatever the efflux pump or tested antibiotic. The results highlighted different dynamics of uptake between ciprofloxacin and fleroxacin as well as the relationship between the level of efflux activity and antibiotic accumulation.

Conclusions: We have developed a microplate protocol and cross-validated two complementary methods: spectrofluorimetry, which contains a reliable internal standard; and MS, which allows detection of low antibiotic amounts. These assays allow study of the dose effect and the efflux impact on the intrabacterial accumulation of antibiotics.