Question

1. Humans and other living organisms also tend to develop resistance against drugs. However, generally it takes years and sometime decades before that happens. (4 points)
   1. Give at least two reasons why microbes develop drug resistance so rapidly. Please explain clearly.               

Answer 1

Yes humans and other higher organisms takes several years for drug resistance as the mutation rate of these organisms is very slow. And posess several repair mechanisms and also due to the presence of introns(non coding). The mutation at introns do not cause any changes in proteins.

But microbes such as bacteria develop drug resistance rapidly due to the following reasons.

1. Bacteria divides so fast that is for 20 minutes one cell divides into two. Due to this rapid division mutation rate is high. More mutations leads to the adaptation towards drugs results in drug resistance.

2. Generally bacteria donot contain introns. So mutations more likely takesplace in coding regions due to chemical and physical damages.

3. Bacteria donot contain advanced repair mechanisms. This is also a reason for mutations which finally leads to drug resistance.

Due to Mutations , lack of perfect repair mechanisms and fast division bacteria become drug resistance more rapidly.