Effect of Beta-Lactam Antibiotics on Eukaryotic DNA Replication: Possible Impact on the Host-Parasite Relationship

According to Waksman, antibiotics are substances produced by microorganisms which exhibit either an inhibitory or destructive effect on other microorganisms. That therapeutically effective concentrations of such products can be tolerated by humans and animals relates primarily to their highly specific interaction with well-defined target structures or functions of the microorganisms attacked which the human or animal cell lack. A prominent example of this is the functioning of the β-lactam antibiotics (BLAs). They specifically bind to and inhibit a number of enzymes involved in bacterial cell wall synthesis, the penicillin-binding proteins, thereby initiating the deleterious effects on growing bacteria [29].