Question

Biologists have proposed that the use of antibiotics to treat human infectious disease has played a role in the evolution ofwidespread antibiotic resistance in several bacterial species. including Staphylococcus aureus and the bacteria causinggonorrhea. tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases. Explain how the evolutionary mechanisms mutation and naturalselection may have contributed to the development of antibiotic resistance.

Answer 1

Answer: Antibiotic resistance is a real but gradual process

Explanation: Usually, antibiotics primarily address various targets: pathogen, sites of pathogenic attack, or nearby white blood cells etc. These remedial action occurs at the molecular and cellular level. Invivo, antibiotics are metabolized (chemically broken down) to yield a smaller and active form that attaches to the pathogen's cell wall and breaks it down to gain entry into its nuclear material (DNA) inhibiting an important nitrogenous base from pairing accurately, when this happens, DNA replication in the pathogen is disrupted.

Then, pathogen tends to undergo point mutations (change of a base to another) in order to evade tailored-made antibiotics, but could be vulnerable to broad spectrum antibiotics.

So, nature permits only the pathogens that could reverse its genome and morphology by point mutations and structural changes respectively - resulting in antibiotic resistance as you already mentioned

I hope this helps