Why can bacteria adapt to antibiotics, but not adapt to environmental things like heat or acids/soaps (Salmonella as an example)?

Question

Edit: I’ve had a lot of fun reading all of your analogies

In: 64

Answer 1

Antibiotics can do a few things. They can either inhibit cellular protein synthesis (example, inhibiting DNA transcribing), which can affect bacterial cell walls and metabolism and lead to cell death. These target specific points in pathways, so if bacteria in a colony has a different pathway to make proteins or their cell walls are composed of a different composition then the antibiotic won’t work.

Picture this, a colony of bacteria has a pathway to make an important protein. It goes from A, to B, to C. The antibiotic messes up A to B so C can’t be made. But a few bacteria go from A to D to C, so that method won’t work.

Extreme changes to heat and pH denatures (permanently changes) the structure of the proteins that make up cells. They cannot adapt to it because at a fundamental molecular level the bonds between amino acids are affected too much.