ANT PHARMING

Ant Pharming: Searching for novel antibiotics in novel niches

Abstract

An antibiotic is a chemical produced by a living being or synthetic derivative that kills or prevents the growth certain kinds of microorganisms sensitive, usually bacteria . Antibiotics are used in medicine human, animals and horticulture to treat infections caused by germs . Normally antibiotics exhibit selective toxicity, being far superior to the invading organisms to animals or humans that stay , but occasionally can a cause adverse drug reaction , and affect the bacterial flora normal body. Antibiotics generally help an individual defenses until local responses are sufficient to control the infection . An antibiotic is bacteriostatic if it prevents the growth of germs, and bactericidal if destroyed, can also generate both effects, as appropriate. One of the most interesting ecological interactions that have been described is the mutualisms that establish foraging ants (Atta colombica), a fungus (Agaricales), which is cultivated in gardens underground in anthills. Ants gathered substrate sheets serving to mold, which in turn serves as food for ants thus fungi garden digestive system functions as external to the ants. However, recently it was discovered that the fungus is unable to degrade cellulose, the main component of plant substrates, showing that the interaction is more complex than previously thought. The core focus of this paper would be to discuss the relationship between antibiotics and ants.

Ant Pharming: Searching for novel antibiotics in novel niches

Introduction

The origin of the word antibiotic comes from the Greek: anti means against, and bios, life. Antibacterials are natural, semisynthetic or synthetic substances, that at low concentrations, inhibit growth or cause death of the bacteria. But they are popularly known to all as antibiotics, although in reality, these are only substances naturally produced by some microorganisms (Biology Archieves, 2008). Since ancient times humans have used organic compounds for the treatment of infectious diseases such as the extract of some plants and fungi of some cheeses. In modern times, they are still in use such as Volatile Organic Compunds (VOC) which are usually created from the blood (Miekisch et al, 2004, pp. 25-39). In the nineteenth century, French prestigious Pasteur (200, pp. 311-320) discovered that certain saprophytic bacteria could destroy Anthrax bacteria In 1900, the German bacteriologist Rudolf von Emmerich isolated a substance that could destroy the microbes that cause cholera and diphtheria in a test tube, but could not apply in the treatment of disease. It can be said that the history of antibiotics as such begins in 1928, when a British scientist named Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin (Bennett 2001, pp. 163-184). However, we must not forget the contribution of Paul Ehrlich in the early twentieth century with the salvarsan to treat syphilis.

Ehrich study shows there is the relationship between chemical composition of the drugs and their mode of action on the body and on the target cells to which they were directed (Lloyd 2011) Among its objectives was to find specific products that have affinity for pathogens and thus spoke of “magic bullets”, ie ...