Spontaneous Spectinomycin resistance ?

[the End]

Pat Foster of the Boston University School of Medicine has kindly pointed
out to me that acquisition of low level resistance to streptomycin and 
perhaps spectinomycin is fairly common, although it is not well characterized.
Low level resistance then allows cells to grow slowly, increasing the pool 
from which to generate high level resistance mutations over time.

Anyone know more about low level spec-strep resistance ? Were this phenomenon
operating in nature among the gram positives, streptomycin would presumably
not be as effective a treatment as observed. 

Thanks,

Jim
J. E. Graham
Biology and Chemistry Departments
Indiana University Bloomington
..............."Il n'y a pas des sciences appliquees, mais il y a
..................des applications de la science."  L. Pasteur.......