Cross-resistance

Cross-resistance is when something develops resistance to several substances that have a similar mechanism of action. For example, if a certain type of bacteria develops resistance to one antibiotic, that bacteria will also have resistance to several other antibiotics that target the same protein or use the same route to get into the bacterium. A real example of cross-resistance occurred for nalidixic acid and ciprofloxacin, which are both quinolone antibiotics. When bacteria developed resistance to ciprofloxacin, they also developed resistance to nalidixic acid because both drugs inhibit topoisomerase, a key enzyme in DNA replication. Due to cross-resistance, antimicrobial treatments like phage therapy can quickly lose their efficacy against bacteria. This makes cross-resistance an important consideration in designing evolutionary therapies.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.