Question

Killing Germs

When a person has a bacterial infection their doctor may prescribe antibiotics. Give an example of an antibiotic and explain how it works to harm bacteria but not human cells.

Would antibiotics be effective for viruses? Explain why or why not.

Answer 1

How do antibiotics kill bacterial cells but not human cells?

ANS- For treatment of human infections, antibiotic play a major role.Most bacteria produce a cell wall that is composed partly of a macromolecule called peptidoglycan, itself made up of amino sugars and short peptides. Human cells do not make or need peptidoglycan.

if we talk about the effect and how antibiotic effect we take an example i.e- penicillin

Penicillin antibiotics were among the first medications to be effective against many bacterial infections caused by staphylococci and streptococci.They are still widely used today, though many types of bacteriahave developed resistance following extensive use.Penicillin, one of the first antibiotics to be used widely, prevents the final cross-linking step, or transpeptidation, in assembly of this macromolecule. The result is a very fragile cell wall that bursts, killing the bacterium. No harm comes to the human host because penicillin does not inhibit any biochemical process that goes on within us.

Would antibiotics be effective for viruses?

we say that virus is resistant to antibiotic. Viruses are structurally different from bacteria. Viruses live and replicate inside of a human cell, they cannot live outside of a human cell. Viruses insert their genetic material into a human cell’s DNA in order to reproduce. Antibiotics cannot kill viruses because bacteria and viruses have different mechanisms and machinery to survive and replicate.The antibiotic has no “target” to attack in a virus.

Using antibiotics for a virus:

• Will not cure the infection
• Won’t help you feel better
• Will not prevent others from catching your virus