PHAR 301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Minimum Inhibitory Concentration, Bacteriostatic Agent, Bactericide
23 Mar 2016
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Goal: study the pathogen and identify potential specific weak spots. All chemotherapy drugs are toxins; but the challenge is that you kill your invader (bacteria, virus, cancer cell) before you kill your own body. Bacteria are prokaryotes while we are eukaryotes; this creates a major difference which makes it easier to find a target that only affects them. Bacterial cells have a wall; a good amount of drugs that target bacteria target the wall, e. g. penicillin, ampicillin, methicillin, cephalosporins, vancomycin, clavulanic acid. All of these drugs come from natural products, e. g. fungi, yeast. During evolution, yeast had to cope with bacteria to survive: evolution has targeted the cell wall in most cases because it is the weak spot of bacteria. Bacteria has dna similar to us but they replicate different enzymes: ciprofloxacin targets the structure of dna that is specific to bacteria.
