Every once in a while I come across an article discussing another
microorganism that managed to become
resistant to an antibiotic, and had had an "interesting experience" with it myself: in 1996 I managed to get myself infected with the
Shigella flexneri bacterium (causing dysenteria...) and the medical lab provided me with a list of
antibiotics the
S. flexneri was resistant to; thus useless to take those type of
medicines. That was then and in Peru. In the meantime, the
MRSA can only be treated with
vancomycin, and the
Pneumococcus causing
pneumonia is even found to be resistant to that. Imagine, since the invention to use
penicillin as a medicine to combat infections, those bacteria "learned" to defend themselves against the whole list of antibiotics below: their
adaptability is faster that our increasing
knowledge about antibiotics. Makes you wonder who is smarter.
To kill the
bacteria,
yeast and
fungi, there are several methods depending on the structure and
physiology of the organism. I grouped them in accordance with the target site, from basic inhibition of their reproduction to interference with its physiology further down the line.
Prevention of DNA synthesis
Mitomycin C
Inhibition of RNA synthesis
Actinomycin D
Rifamycin B (and derivative
Rifampicin)
Inhibition of protein synthesis
Streptomycin A
Tetracyclines
chloramphenicol/
chloromycetin
cycloheximide
Erythromycin
Puromycin
neomycin
Interference with cell wall synthesis
Penicillin
Phenethicillin
Ampicillin (and
Amoxicillin)
Carbenicillin
Cephalosporin C
vancomycin
Membrane transport disruption
Gramicidin A
Valinomycin
Nonactin
Polypeptide antibiotics,
detergents
polymyxin (derivative
polysporin)
colistin
bacitracin
subtilin
I know there are more antibiotics than the ones I mentioned (about 100 in total), but they have more or less the same
biochemical fuction as one or more mentioned above, but I'd like to have a complete list, so please /msg me if you know any others and I'll add them.
The most useful sources were my Biochemistry bible from Stryer, General Microbiology written by Schlegel and my own memory.