Antibiotics: How Do They Work?

The Chemistry Behind Drugs and Diseases

We’ve all taken drugs in our lives (the medicinal ones) whether we were sick or we wanted to prevent illness.

I’m sure you’ve also wondered, “how does it actually work?”. Of course it’s prescribed by a credible professional, but wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly what’s happening in our body?

Let’s find out!

Overview

Drugs are chemical substances that can cure diseases or at least mitigate their effect. In ancient times, drugs were given to people as herbal mixtures obtained through nature. As time went on, chemists became more and more advanced and ultimately were able to extract the main part of the herbs and plants that effectively helped in treating the disease.

With major advancements in medicine, the drugs we know today came into being through rigorous research on their properties and effects. Certainly, this process is continuous and new medicines are taking form on a daily basis.

Antibiotics

Antibiotics are a specific type of drug and probably the one that we’re most used to. Basically, antibiotics function to treat infections that can rise within your body. They specifically target the bacteria that is causing the infection and either destroy them or stop them from multiplying.

Let’s get some terminologies out of the way before we proceed.

1. Bacteria: bacteria are single celled species that have a very complex design. Their cell wall allows them to survive wherever they are. As they can multiply, they disrupt the natural processes inside your body and thus cause infections.
2. Cell wall: Certain types of cells have a wall surrounding their structure. This wall essentially protects them from the external environment.
3. Enzymes: Enzymes are biological substances that increase the rate of biological processes without being used up.

Amoxicillin

Amoxicillin is a type of antibiotic of the penicillin class. You may have taken it as either Amoxil or Trimox which are its trade names. Amoxicillin is used to treat numerous infections such as chest infections, skin infections and urinary tract infections.

Let’s look at Amoxicillin’s structure as shown below.

Amoxicillin contains a structural feature called a beta-lactam ring. The four-membered ring, or the square in the above structure with a Nitrogen atom (N) on it is the beta-lactam ring. The other three points are carbon atoms (we omit them in this specific diagram).

The ring is very strained, i.e. the atoms are very close to each other and held by weak bonds. This makes the ring highly reactive and this specific reactivity leads to Amoxicillin’s function as an antibiotic.

Mechanism of Action

As mentioned before, the bacteria have a cell wall that keeps them protected. the beta-lactam ring of Amoxicillin is reactive enough to target that cell wall and damage it.

The cell wall has an essential component: peptidoglycan which makes it stable and functioning.

Peptidoglycan is continually synthesised and used up inside the cell wall to ensure the bacteria survive.

The production of peptidoglycan is boosted by enzymes: Penicillin Binding Proteins (PBPs).

So what happens is that Amoxicillin attaches to the cell wall and inhibits the production of PBPs. It also keeps damaging the cell wall.

Since peptidoglycan isn’t being produced in fast amounts, the cell wall effectively disintegrates overtime and the bacteria are destroyed. With the bacteria gone, the infection subsides.

Final Words

This was an informative article aimed at providing you with a basic detail of how a certain antibiotic works. I hope you were able to learn something from it about medicinal chemistry and that it made you more aware of what’s happening within your body.

If you enjoyed, do clap loads as it helps out a lot. Leave a comment and share your thoughts about the article as well, I would love to hear your valuable contribution.

Thank you so much for reading!