Antibiotic Resistance

Question 1

Give 3 mechanisms which confer antibiotic resistance on bacteria

Answer 1

Drug efflux pumps that remove drugs

Alteration of the protein target of the drug

Inhibition of the uptake of the drug

Question 2

Amount of DNA exchanged in the bacterial world is small, but _

Answer 2

Exchange can occur between distantly related species

Question 3

Give 2 examples of antibiotic resistant species

Answer 3

MRSA

MDR-TB (multidrug resistant tuberculosis)

Question 4

Give 2 reasons why bacteria are especially prone to mutartion

Answer 4

They have high rates of replication

They are haploid organisms

Question 5

What is the means by which bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?

Answer 5

The production of enzymes which render antibiotics inactive

Question 6

Does resistance arise more frequently because of mutations, or because of gene transfer?

Answer 6

Gene transfer

Question 7

What are the two primary means of gene transfer in bacterial species?

Answer 7

Conjugation

Transduction

Question 8

Which type of molecule carries genes encoding enzymes capable of inactivating antibiotics

Answer 8

Plasmids

Question 9

Which extrachromosomal genetic structure can replicate independent of chromosomes

Answer 9

Plasmids

Question 10

Gene transfer of plasmids in conjugation is thought to be facilitated by mobile genetic elements known as

Answer 10

Transposons

Question 11

What causes lysis of a cell which has had its cell wall weakened by the action of antibiotic drugs?

Answer 11

the osmotic gradient between the cytoplasm and the external environment

Question 12

During transduction, which type of organism takes a piece of DNA from one bacterial and inserts it in to another (along with its own DNA)

Answer 12

Bacteriophages