Question

Briefly discuss why it is difficult to develop drugs against the following: Eukaryotic microbes Viruses

Answer 1

It is very difficult to develop the drugs against pathogens like eukaryotic microbes and viruses. The eukaryotic microbes have similar structural organization and feature of that of their host. The infections causing eukaryotic microbes are mostly evolved as parasites. Therefore, they certainly evolved with mechanisms to escape from host immune defense mechanisms. Moreover, the genetic changes they undergo with the changes in environment allow them to gain more resistance to drugs or they may acquire genes for drug resistance. Therefore, the genetic changes and mutations are the major cause for synthesis of drugs against eukaryotic pathogens. Moreover, the similarity of structural features can cause some side effects on host due to the drugs targeting the eukaryotic microbes and can damage the host cells to some extent.

The viruses are also potentially dangerous infectious agents. The viruses constantly changing their genetic constitution through mutations as they are most possible agents to undergo genetic changes. The insertion of drug resistance genes into bacteria are also mediated by viruses through transduction. Moreover, the viruses modify their surface antigens frequently to evade the host immune defenses. Therefore, the evolutionary mechanism, gene recombination, and mutations enable the viruses to develop resistance against the drugs.