Question

Rank based on their difficulty to treat with antimicrobials of the following pathogens: bacteria, yeasts, viruses, and worms. Then explain the choice/ranking

Answer 1

I am giving you ranking on the basis of their ability to infect animal cells. Whenever we have to kill a microbe, we target any one step of its cellular metabolism.

The most difficult to treat are the viruses. This is because they are neither living nor non living .The metabolism of these entities is not completely understood. So, we are not able to design medicines to target its metabolism. Also, it gets inside the host and uses host machinery to make its own proteins. So, there are overlaps between viral and host metabolism.

The less difficult to treat is worms. Worms and humans, both belong to animal kingdom and both are eukaryotic. Both of them do not have a cell wall. So, the target of anti worm drug is microtubule formation so, that cells do not divide. Microtubules are common between worms and humans. So, it is difficult to design medicines which target only microtubules of worms.

The even less difficult to treat is fungi. Both humans and fungi are eukaryotic but humans do not have a cell wall. Medicines designed against fungi are targeted against cell wall. So, fungal infections are a bit easy to treat.

The most easy to treat is bacteria. This is because bacteria is prokaryotic and humans are eukaryotic. There are a lot of differences between the two. Medicines against bacteria can target its cell wall or transcription or translation or even ribosomes. All these prosses are absolutely different in prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

So, the order will be bacteria < fungi < worms < virus

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