The metabolic slowdown caused by the deletion of <i>pspA</i> accelerates protein aggregation during stationary phase facilitating antibiotic persistence.

"conceptualization: y l x c and f b y x; methodology: y l x c w z and k f; formal analysis: y l x c and f l; funding acquisition: y l j t and y x; investigation: y l x c and t s; writing - original draft: y l x c and m h; writing - review and editing: y l x c j h m c and j t; supervision: y l and y x data availability raw sequencing reads of rna-seq files from this study are available in the ncbi sequence read archive (sra accession no prjna948174 ). table s2 aac 00937-23-s0006 xlsx data availability raw sequencing reads of rna-seq files from this study are available in the ncbi sequence read archive (sra accession no prjna948174"

"The authors declare no conflict of interest."

"This work was financially supported by Special Foundation for National Science and Technology Basic Research Program of China under the award number 2019FY101205 (to Y.X.), National Natural Science Foundation of China under award numbers 32000024 (to Y.L.) and 82002314 (to J.T.), and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS) under the award number 2021-I2M-1-038 (to Y.X.). The funding bodies had no role in the study design, the interpretation of the findings, or the writing of the manuscript. Conceptualization: Y.L., X.C., and F.B., Y.X.; Methodology: Y.L., X.C., W.Z., and K.F.; Formal analysis: Y.L., X.C., and F.L.; Funding acquisition: Y.L., J.T., and Y.X.; Investigation: Y.L., X.C., and T.S.; Writing - original draft: Y.L., X.C., and M.H.; Writing - review and editing: Y.L., X.C., J.H., M.C., and J.T.; Supervision: Y.L. and Y.X."