Fig. 2: Selective patterns of mutant pools transformed with antibiotic resistance genes.

Each ARG-mutant pool was subjected to different drugs (indicated above the panels) at a concentration twice that of the WT MIC. The shading of the heatmap tiles illustrates the relative abundance of each mutant within each ARG-associated mutant pool. Highlighted combinations (except yellow) show the significant deviations (ANOVA, p < 0.05) from the null-hypothesis that the ARG has no influence on the mutant distribution across at least two replicates. Combinations highlighted in red illustrate the cases where the ARG shields mutants that would otherwise be selected. Blue highlights situations in which an ARG that does not confer resistance to the antibiotic tested reduces the selection of the mutant; suggesting a negative interaction between the mutant and the ARG. Cases highlighted in yellow demonstrate the selection of the resistant mutant despite the presence of a resistance gene conferring resistance to the antibiotic tested, suggesting a dominant effect of the mutant over the resistance gene. ARG and mutant labels are colored according to the expected main resistance conferred. AMK (amikacin), AZM (azithromycin), AZMCHL (azithromycin and chloramphenicol), CIP (ciprofloxacin), CST (colistin), DOX_2 (doxycycline—low resistance), DOX_6 (doxycycline—high resistance), FEP (cefepime), GEN (gentamycin), LB (Medium without antibiotics), TET (tetracycline), and TMP (trimethoprim). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.