Antimicrobial Agents Quiz

Antimicrobial Agents: Types, Classification, and Actions

• Antimicrobial agents are chemical substances produced by microorganisms that can either inhibit or destroy other microorganisms.
• Bacteriostatic agents inhibit bacterial growth, while bactericidal agents kill bacteria.
• Narrow-spectrum antimicrobial drugs are effective against a limited number of pathogens, while broad-spectrum antimicrobial drugs can destroy different kinds of organisms.
• Chemotherapeutic agents can be classified into natural drugs, semisynthetic drugs, and synthetic drugs.
• Bacteriostatic agents include chloramphenicol, sulfonamide, tetracycline, dapsone, and erythromycin.
• Bactericidal agents include aminoglycosides, beta-lactams, glycopeptide, isoniazid, quinolone, bacitracin, and metronidazole.
• The minimal inhibitory concentration is the lowest concentration of a drug that inhibits bacterial growth, while the minimal lethal concentration is the lowest concentration of a drug that kills bacterial growth.
• The therapeutic index is the ratio of the toxic dose to the therapeutic dose, with a higher therapeutic index indicating a more effective chemotherapeutic agent.
• Antimicrobials can inhibit cell wall synthesis, protein synthesis, nucleic acid synthesis, destroy the cell membrane, and inhibit essential metabolites.
• Cell wall inhibitors include beta-lactam antibiotics, isoniazid, vancomycin, carbenicillin, and methicillin.
• Protein synthesis inhibitors include chloramphenicol, tetracyclines, erythromycin, spectinomycin, lincomycin, aminoglycosides, clindamycin, and fusidic acid.
• Nucleic acid synthesis inhibitors include rifampicin, quinolones, and metronidazole, while essential metabolite inhibitors include sulfonamides, trimethoprim, dapsone, and isoniazid.