Question

Where do antibiotic resistance genes come from?

Answer 1

Antibiotic resistance genes:

1. Antibiotic resistance is a naturally occurring process.
2. An increase in antibiotic resistance is driven by a combination of germs exposed to antibiotics, and the spread of those germs and their resistance mechanisms.
3. It means the bacteria or fungi causing the infection are resistant to the antibiotic or the antifungal treatment.
4. Antibiotic resistance genes are often located on plasmids and can be transferred from cell to cell by conjugation, transformation, or transduction.
5. Antibiotics and antifungals kill some germs that cause infections, but they also kill helpful germs that protect our bodies from infection.
6. The antimicrobial-resistant germs survive and multiply. These surviving germs have resistance traits in their DNA that can spread to other germs.
7. To survive, germs can develop defense strategies against antibiotics and antifungals called resistance mechanisms.
8. Bacteria and fungi can carry genes for many types of resistance.
9. The germs have the right combination of resistance mechanisms, it can make all antibiotics or antifungals ineffective, resulting in untreatable infections.
10. This gene exchange allows the resistance to rapidly spread throughout the population of bacteria and among different species of bacteria.