36
votes
Are red blood cells prokaryotic?
When differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes are taught in an introductory biology course, a generic prokaryotic cell and a generic eukaryotic cell are typically compared. Cells in a complex ...
- 8,691
21
votes
Accepted
Could viruses be used as antibiotics?
Could we use viruses that only affect bacteria to act as antibiotics?
Yes. The specific class you're referring to is called a "bacteriophage".
There's quite a bit of research going on surrounding ...
- 9,074
19
votes
Accepted
Does cell culturing contribute to dangerous antibiotic resistance to the same degree as livestock?
Antibiotics are used in very different ways in cell culture and in livestock farming.
As you note, in farming, antibiotics are used to manage infection in unsanitary conditions and also to increase ...
- 6,937
14
votes
Could viruses be used as antibiotics?
Yes you could.
It used to be a big deal before antibiotics were discovered, and continued for a bit in the Soviet Union.
However, due to the success of antibiotics, it fell out of grace. Due to the ...
- 326
11
votes
Are red blood cells prokaryotic?
No. Prokayotic cells are full organisms with their own DNA, red blood cells are not.
- 4,710
10
votes
If ants have an antibiotic gland, how can they spread hospital infections?
I have worked in hospitals (US) most of my life, treating both community-acquired, and more pertinently to this question, nosocomial (hospital acquired) infections, and have read many articles on the ...
- 24.3k
9
votes
Accepted
How do the three mechanisms of the 1000X improved "new" vancomycin work together?
This is typically for a paper under embargo - it can be accessed by registered journalists so they can cover the original article when it is published. The paper is now published, so I changed the ...
- 49.2k
7
votes
If ants have an antibiotic gland, how can they spread hospital infections?
Ants can and do carry loads that are several times their own weight. I grew up in an area with a lot of ants, and a common scene was a long trail of ants acting as a food supply line. Once a morsel is ...
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7
votes
Will all bacteria become resistant against all antibiotics in the long term?
and there is not much evolutionary pressure to loose it
The energetic cost of replicating antibiotic resistance genes in the absence of antibiotic selection is not trivial, and varies depending on ...
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6
votes
Accepted
What are the positive effects of wrongful antibiotic use on a viral infection?
There are indeed antibiotics which have immunomodulatory side-effects, these are mostly from the class of macrolide antibiotics (erythromycin, clarithromycin, roxithromycin, azithromycin) and to some ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Why is triclosan not considered an antibiotic?
I agree with @Chris that this is mostly a matter of definitions -
Greenfacts defines biocides as:
According to the Biocides Directive (98/8/EC), biocidal products are those that are intended to ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Have bacteria evolved antibiotic resistance in a laboratory setting?
Yes, many times.
For just one example, see this paper; you could also see this review for numerous examples.
These are examples of spontaneous mutations that lead to antibiotic resistance, so this ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Why is AMR not widespread?
Natural selection is environment-dependent. A mutation that makes an individual more fit in one context, might make it less fit in a different context.
The mutations that make bacteria more fit in an ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Is bacterial resistance caused by underdosing?
In a 2017 analysis in The BMJ, Martin Llewelyn and colleagues addressed the question of whether it is good to advise people prescribed antibiotics to "finish the course".1 I've copied their ...
- 7,739
5
votes
"Antibiotic resistance" equivalent in archaea for selection during cloning
Obviously, one can't use antibiotic resistance since they are not bacteria.
This is not so obvious. Some common antibiotics are active against archaea.1 The Halohandbook, an indispensable document ...
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5
votes
Why is triclosan not considered an antibiotic?
Triclosan binds to bacterial enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase
(ENR) enzyme, which is encoded by the gene FabI. This binding
increases the enzyme's affinity for nicotinamide adenine ...
- 35.1k
5
votes
why don't antibiotics reduce our weight?
First, you present as fact that antibiotics therapy (say AT) does not reduce weight. To show this fact, a study must weigh persons before AT and after. Confounders to this measurement are 1. weight ...
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5
votes
Accepted
Are red blood cells prokaryotic?
Are red blood cells prokaryotic?
No!
There are many more differences between procaryotes and eukaryotes than just the presence of a nucleus. See DeNovo's answer for more information.
The terms ...
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4
votes
Accepted
What is the impact of sertraline on white blood cells?
Short answer
While sertraline may theoretically affect the immune system, there is no evidence, as far as I know, that it negatively impacts immune status.
Background
In the article (Atkin-Smith et ...
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4
votes
If ants have an antibiotic gland, how can they spread hospital infections?
Other than the fact that ants carry bacteria on their food particles, there could also be alternative reasons that they can spread infections.
Just like antibiotics derived from bacteria and fungi ...
- 9,314
4
votes
Why is triclosan not considered an antibiotic?
I think this is mostly a semantic differentiation, when you look up definitions for antibiotics you can find very narrow which only include the classic and modern antibiotics, while others include ...
- 49.2k
4
votes
Accepted
Bacteria resistance to natural antibiotics?
For a natural immunity to evolve, two things have to happen:
The immunity has to actually occur. That means all the necessary mutations will need to be there to grant this bacterium resistance to ...
- 2,228
4
votes
Accepted
Why does azithromycin not affect human mitochondria?
There are two general points that should be appreciated in relation to this question:
Your statement that mitochondria “have prokaryotic ribosomes” is a misleading simplification. Although ...
- 22.5k
4
votes
Accepted
Why should benzalkonium chloride (an antifungal agent) be used during your laundry machine's "rinse" cycle, not its "wash" cycle?
The label of the veterinary product Fung-A-Way, which is Benzalkonium Chloride 0.15%, states that "Efficiency is neutralized by soap or detergent residues."
The website http://www.mpbio.com has the ...
- 56
4
votes
Accepted
Why are aminoglycoside antibiotics particularly effective for aerobic gram negative bacteria?
Anaerobiosis is incompatible with effective intracellular accumulation of aminoglycoside antibiotics such as streptomycin and gentamycin.
After an initial binding step involving outer membrane ...
- 22.7k
4
votes
Could plasmids and conjugation mechanisms be used against antibiotic-resistant bacteria?
If we assume all of these things could be practically done at least at some point in the future, here are the problems I see with the suggestions, and why they might not work (others may spot ...
- 1,279
4
votes
Accepted
Are fluoroquinolone antibiotics (Cipro, Levaquin, etc) chemotherapy drugs?
Short answer: Yes, fluoroquinolones are chemotherapy drugs
In layman's terms, fluoroquinolone antibiotics kill human cells as they divide. Fluoroquinolones are a class of drug called "...
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4
votes
Is there any kind of antibiotic effective against fungi?
Yes. The antibiotic (general microorganism “targeter”) you’re looking for is an antifungal. There are fewer ways to target fungi as opposed to bacteria, but we can target them nonetheless.
The fungal ...
- 51
4
votes
Are red blood cells prokaryotic?
No, they are matured (broken) reticulocytes without the net structure and ribosomal DNA, which themselves are matured (broken) normoblasts that have lost their nucleus.
So basically they're the left ...
- 259
4
votes
Accepted
Why does tetracycline have such a broad spectrum of activity?
This is a tricky question. First of all, I wouldn't call tetracyclines "uniquely" broad spectrum. They are broad spectrum, but there are other drugs with equally broad coverage absent acquired ...
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