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On TV or newspaper, you may be bound to learn the scary story about antibiotic-resistance, the increasing numbers of bacteria no longer respond to treatment with many of the antibiotics we have.
Why do bacteria become resistance to antibiotics?
Bacteria have the best capacity to survive and to evade elimination by doing specific things to resist antibiotics. The resistance mechanisms are very complex and may principally be :
@ Bacteria create specific things to break down the antibiotic (inactivated by decomposing) or to chemically change the structure of the antibiotic (inactivated by modifyingj.
A Antibiotic target points in the bacteria are changed into inaccessible points iqualitative mutation of pointj, and then the points are reproduced on and on (quantitative mutation of point).
B Bacteria themselves are structurally altered to prevent antibiotics binding. Antibiotics are excluded from cell entry or are pumped out of the cell (efflux).
Because antibiotic resistance may be accomplished by more than one resistance mechanisms, the problem is very tough.
Genes of these antibiotic resistance bacteria may be spread and reproduced in many ways among different strain of bacteria or non-resistant cells. Therefore, one day, one antibiotic may become no longer effective against a disease caused by the resistant bacteria. This in turn will result in developing new antibiotics. It is a vicious circle.
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