Question

You go to the doctor because you have a bacterial infection in your upper respiratory tract. the doctor prescribes a semisynthetic erythromycin derivative for you to take orally for 10 days. the bacteria in your lungs die, but so do the

e. coli in your intestinal tract. why?

Answer 1

Erythromycin is a macrolide that inhibits the synthesis of critical proteins of bacteria, binding to the ribosomal RNA and preventing the translocation of tRNA from the ribosome complex. This suppresses their growth (an action called bacteriostatic) and can also lead to bacterial death. Since rRNA and tRNA are common across all bacteria, even the E. coli will be affected.