Antibiotics – antibiotic resistance

1) is the cell sensitive?

- cell wall / membrane permeable?

- sensitive target present?

2) action at

- cell wall synthesis

- membrane functions

- replication

- transcription

- translation

3) resistance mechanism (nb. sometimes different mechanisms may be possible with the same antibiotic)

- block penetration of the cell (keep the cell free of antibiotic)

- degradation of the antibiotic (removal intra- or extracellularly)

- modification of the antibiotic (inactivate the agent)

- modification of the target (avoid the action)

- amplification of the target (titration of the agent : tolerance by excess target)

Dot-blot analysis of interferon-beta mRNA concentration.