β-lactam antibiotics questions..please help?
Can anyone help on these please, I have to circle the correct answers in this paragraph. I know the second one is inhibiting protein synthesis, but unsure of the others..does anyone know??
β-lactam antibiotics are bacteriostatic/bactericidal antibiotics that act by inhibiting protein synthesis/cell wall synthesis. They function by preventing the formation of cross-links between proteins and lipids/adjacent peptidoglycan chains. They are only active against growing cells/stationary phase cells. Their action is to make the cells sensitive to lysis in hypotonic/hypertonic media.
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These antibiotics are bacteriocidal
They inhibit cell wall synthesis (tetracyclines inhibit protein synthesis)
They prevent cross links of peptidoglycans
They are active during the growing phase
They make bacteria sensitive to lysis in hypotonic media (hypertonic media will make them shrivel up)
Actually beta-lactams are bacteriostatic. They do not kill bacteria, but instead abolish their ability to grow or multiply by inhibiting new cell wall synthesis, by cross linking proteins (recall that peptidoglycan has no lipids, only sugars and peptides). They are active only against growing cells. Finally, as a cell wall can't grow, if the bacteria were immersed in a hypotonic solution, water would rush into the cell, cause it to grow, and eventually the cell wall wouldn't be able to contain it...it would lyse.