ABSTRACT

The chemical reactions that result in killing a microbe have been defined for almost every antibiotic . As described above, when cell wall building is interrupted, wall deficient variants are expected. Unexpected, however, is the formation of such variants from antibiotics well known to inhibit protein synthesis . This is at least partially explained by scanning electron microscopy studies by Klainer and Perkins .37 They found changes in bacterial surfaces after exposure to kanamycin, tobramycin, and chloramphenicol. Another possibility is production of excess autolysin which removes cell walls . Coincidentally, surface changes on Escherichia coli are obvious when the organism is exposed to the monobactam, Aztoreonam, in urine (Figure 9_ 1 ) .69