Read this article to learn about the applications of antibiotics.
Antibiotics are particularly important as antimicrobial agents for chemotherapy. A large number of bacterial diseases have been brought under control by use of antibiotics. These include pneumonia, cholera, tuberculosis and leprosy. The antifungal antibiotic griseofulvin has controlled the debilitating fungal skin diseases such as ring worm. Besides serving as antimicrobial agents, there are several other applications of antibiotics.
1. Antitumor antibiotics:
There are a selected few antibiotics that are in use for control of cancer growth, although with a limited success e.g. actinomycin D, mitomycin C.
2. Food preservative antibiotics:
Certain antibiotics are used in canning industry (e.g. chlortetracycline), and for preservation of fish, meat and Poultry (e.g. Pimancin nisin). The use of antibiotics in food Preservation is usually under the control of the Governments.
3. Antibiotics used in animal feed and veterinary medicine:
Till some time ago, antibiotics (penicillins, tetracyclines, erythromycins) were very widely used in processing of animal feeds. Such an indiscriminate use resulted in the development of antibiotic resistance in animals and humans. A new class of antibiotics have been developed for specific use in animal feed e.g. enduracidin, tylosin. Likewise, specific antibiotics have been developed for exclusive use in veterinary medicine e.g. hygromycin B, theostrepton, salinomycin.
4. Antibiotics for control of plant diseases:
In recent years, several antibiotics have been developed for exclusive use to control plant diseases e.g. blasticidin, tetranactin, polyoxin.
5. Antibiotics as tools in molecular biology:
Some of the antibiotics can selectively inhibit certain biological reactions at the molecular level. These antibiotics do in fact serve as tools for exploring the knowledge of life sciences. Thus, certain antibiotics have been used to obtain some important information on DNA replication, transcription and translation.