Question

What are antibiotics? How do they work? How penicillin is effective to control bacterial disease?

Answer 1

Antibiotics are medicines that kill or stop the growth of disease causing microbes or pathogens/germs, hence they are useful for curing diseases. Antibiotics intercept various biological pathways that inhibits the growth of the pathogen. For eg. Penicillin is a type of antibiotic that targets the cell wall of bacteria and degrades it. In the absence of the cell wall, the bacteria dies. Antibiotics are ineffective against viral diseases because they are acellular that is they dont have a cellular structure, so the specific biochemical pathways on which antibiotics work on cannot be intercepted.

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Answer 2

Answer:

.Antibiotics commonly block biochemical pathways important for bacteria.Many bacteria for  example make a cell wall to protect themselves. The antibiotic penicillin blocks the bacterial  processes that build the cell wall. As a result the growing bacteria become unable to make cell  wall and die easily. It will have this effect on any species of bacteria that use such processes for  making cell walls . Many antibiotics work against many species of bacteria rather than simply  working against one.