Impact of antibiotic misuse on genetics alterations of bacteria

Abstract

Antibiotic resistance is a live issue when it comes to public health and emerging infectious diseases. Opinion of many experts in this field is that misuse or overuse of antibiotics have contributed to fast development of antibiotic resistance. This paper is focused on genetics alterations of bacteria caused by misuse of antibiotics. The acquisition of resistance can occur by horizontal or vertical transmission, so we described the mechanisms of resistance, as well as evolution of resistance genes. We explained mutagenesis induced by antibiotics, as well as recombination and lateral transfer mechanisms. At the end we got to multiple drug resistant bacteria, as a most urgent threat to a public health. Many strains of bacteria become resistant, or in many cases multi-resistant to many therapeutic drugs because of their ability to adapt to the environment and to develop different mechanisms of resistance to most old and new antimicrobial agents. Some strains have become resistant to practically all of the commonly available agents.