Question: That Title Sounds Like Something Out Of The Terminator Movies! In Actuality, It Isn’t That Far Off. Bacteria Have The Ability To Adapt To Their Environment Just Like Other Living Organisms. We Come At Them With Antibiotics To Kill Them Or Slow Their Growth, And They In Turn Adapt Ways To Resist The Drugs. In This Activity, You Will Learn Firsthand …

That title sounds like something out of the Terminator movies!In actuality, it isn’t that far off. Bacteria have the ability toadapt to their environment just like other living organisms. Wecome at them with antibiotics to kill them or slow their growth,and they in turn adapt ways to resist the drugs.
In this activity, you will learn firsthand how bacteria evolvemechanisms of resistance. Please read the description orconjugation and complete the questions below.
Bacteria can contain plasmids, extrachromosomal DNA, which canconfer resistance to some types of antibiotics. This process is howbacteria can introduce a bit of genetic variance into theirpopulations (because bacteria reproduce via asexual means). Theprocess of conjugation is as follows:
– A bacteria containing a plasmid (donor bacteria) constructs apilus (a hollow tubular structure that can attach to a recipientbacteria).

– The recipient bacteria is on the other end of the pilus.

– The donor bacteria begins to replicate the plasmid. One strandof the DNA stays in the donor, one strand of the DNA enters thepilus and travels to the recipient bacteria.

– Since DNA is a double helix, each bacteria, donor andrecipient, make a complementary strand so the plasmid is a doublehelix. Now both bacteria have the plasmid and all of the geneticinformation it contains.

Using this information, write an answer to the followingquestions:
1. If a patient is colonized with MRSA, methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus, and they subsequently get impetigo caused byStaphylococcus aureus (no methicillin resistance), what couldhappen between the bacteria? How would this be problematic?

2. A patient is suffering from an Enterococci infection, and thebacteria causing the infection are resistant to vancomycin (VRE).This is an infection that causes diarrhea because the bacteriainfect the small intestine. Given that the human intestinal tractcontains normal microbiota, what could you see happening if thiswere to occur? Discuss how this could be a problem if it occurredin a health care setting, like a nursing home or hospital.