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Microbiology and Pathogens

Antibiotic resistance

  • 3 things to know
  • Papers 1 and 3

Overview

Recall questions on how resistance arises by mutation and spreads by natural selection, vertical transmission, conjugation, transformation, transduction and R-plasmids, the misuse that accelerates it, and the control measures and why each is limited.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Process

Why is horizontal gene transfer significant for antibiotic resistance, and what are transduction and transformation?

Evaluation

Explain why resistant bacteria become more common in a population when antibiotics are applied.

Process

Define conjugation as a mechanism of horizontal gene transfer.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    How does antibiotic resistance initially arise in a bacterial population?

    Model answer

    Through spontaneous random mutations in bacterial DNA that confer a survival advantage in the presence of antibiotics.

  2. 2

    Explain why resistant bacteria become more common in a population when antibiotics are applied.

    Model answer

    Natural selection favours resistant bacteria because susceptible bacteria are killed by the antibiotic, while resistant individuals survive and reproduce, passing on their resistance genes.

  3. 3

    What is vertical transmission of antibiotic resistance?

    Model answer

    When resistant bacteria reproduce and pass resistance genes to their daughter cells during cell division.

  4. 4

    Define conjugation as a mechanism of horizontal gene transfer.

    Model answer

    Direct transfer of plasmids between bacteria via pili (cytoplasmic bridges).

  5. 5

    What is transformation in the context of bacterial gene transfer?

    Model answer

    The uptake of free DNA from the environment by bacteria.

  6. 6

    Describe transduction as a method of horizontal gene transfer.

    Model answer

    Transfer of DNA between bacteria via bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria).

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