How do antibiotics work, and how does antibiotic resistance evolve?
Antibiotics are an essential type of medicine used to treat and prevent bacterial infections, but their use is threatened by growing levels of antibiotic resistance.
What are the different types of antibiotics, and how do they work? Moreover, how does antibiotic resistance develop and spread?
By understanding them more clearly, we’ll have a better appreciation of how resistance can be a threat; why bacteria might still be susceptible to antibiotics; and how to develop new antibiotics and technologies that can avoid resistance.
Bacteria compete with other bacteria for resources like nutrients and space. Some bacteria produce antibiotics to suppress or kill competitors, giving them an advantage. 1 They target specific processes in bacterial cells that are critical for growth, reproduction, or stability.
Many antibiotics we use today come from nature — from bacteria that produce compounds to compete with each other — and we’ve used this to our advantage. But these bacteria are also in an arms race, and have developed ways to resist antibiotics.
