{
  "abstract": "When cells are exposed to stress, they typically activate stress-response pathways and enter a regulated growth-arrest. But what if the stress overwhelms these pathways? In such cases, cells may enter a disrupted growth-arrest - a poorly adapted, abrupt cessation of growth, characterized by a broad distribution of lag times upon stress removal. This distribution underlies antibiotic persistence during stress recovery. Therefore, gaining a deeper understanding of the disrupted growth-arrest is important for developing more effective antibiotic therapies. In this study, we perform single cell RNA-seq on bacteria in disrupted conditions. We develop GMP-Cor: a metric to quantify dysregulation and analyze gene-gene correlation patterns in sparse single-cell data. We find that gene-gene correlations are significantly reduced in disrupted cells compared to regulated cells, providing direct evidence that this tolerance-enhanced state, along with its increased membrane sensitivity, is associated with global-dysregulation. We demonstrate that GMP-Cor can extend to other biological systems, such as persistent cancer cells, where it separates proliferating from drug-arrested cells.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Hebrew University"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "A. Gutfreund"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Rotem"
    },
    {
      "name": "I. Ronin"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Z. Rosenthal"
    },
    {
      "name": "O. Agam"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "N. Q. Balaban"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5pmcjp1xsst41.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.11.02.763672",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.02.763672v1.full",
  "id": "5pmcjp1xsst41",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.02.763672v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "microbiology"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.02.763672v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-11-02",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5pmcjp1xsst41.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-04T12:21:01Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.11.02.763672",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.02.763672v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:microbiology",
      "subfield": "microbiology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "GMP-Cor: Quantifying Transcriptional Dysregulation in Antibiotic Tolerance and Persistence",
  "title_text": "GMP-Cor: Quantifying Transcriptional Dysregulation in Antibiotic Tolerance and Persistence",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-05T00:21:12Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5pmcjp1xsst41",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}