Antibiotics are derived from actual bacteria. Only a small percentage are synthetically manufactured; the majority being "harvested" from living bacteria. Antibiotics are one bacteriums way of gaining an edge over competing strains of bacteria. If a particular strain is capable of killing off another type of bacteria, then the nutrients it needs to survive are more easily attained. It is for this reason that antibiotics don't work on viruses. They are designed to attack the cellular membrane enveloping the bacterium. The structure of a virus... which is basically, the capsid and the tail, cannot be harmed by antibiotics. If you were wondering why a doctor sometimes gives antibiotics to people with a viral infection, then this is because a bacterial infection COULD occur due to the body being weakened by the virus. I hope this answers your question.
Why dont antibiotic work on viruses?systemworks
The key to your answer is to consider the target of the particular antibiotic. Penicillin is a drug that inhibits the final crosslinking event of peptidoglycan synthesis. Peptidoglycan is a sugar-peptide moity found within the bacterial cell walls.. if you inhibit this molecule, you weaken the cell wall/integrity of the bacterial cell, and it lyses.
so why doesnt the same happen to viruses? well viruses don't have peptidoglycan so penicillin has no effect. Every drug has a particular target, and those cells that don't have the target, or different such that the drug doesn't recognize the target, are not affected.
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