Explain the evolution of antibiotic resistance and why it constitutes a crisis in medicine. Include in your answer: intraspecific variation, pre-existing variation, mutation, natural selection, artificial selection.

 

Antibiotic resistance is the condition of the body to fail to detect or respond to antibiotic medicine due to the collective efforts of mutation, variation, and natural selection.

Step-by-step explanation

Mutation is the alteration/distortion of genetic material. Intraspecific variation is caused by a variety of intrinsic features such as body size, personality, or sex which exert pressure on genetic information leading to variations. Preexisting variation refers to indigenous of already present variation of genetic information before the emergence of the variations induced by an external force. Natural selection is the biological and automatic identification of organisms with the most viable genetic information to continue thriving in the ecosystem. It is attributable to natural factors like migrations. Artificial selection is some modified (manmade) selection by humans to artificially select the desired traits without consideration of natural factors (Guo et al.., 2018).

How they cause antibiotic resistance;

Natural selection and artificial selection identifies the desired genetic information which can be inherited by the next generation. Such selection involves distortion/modification of genetic information in an effort to identify such genetic codes that account for mutation. Mutation is defined as the distortion to the genetic composition that causes varying elements in the genetic information which explains variations. The organism, therefore, find itself in a new environment with varying features. They have to adapt and this leads them to adjust their immune systems to adapt to the new environments caused by the variations and the accompanying channel of mutation, artificial and natural selection. This means that the immune system which was initially use to certain antibiotics, has rapidly changed and thus they cannot be recognized anymore hence antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotic resistance leads to medicine crisis in that the scientists have a hard time in establishing the medicine relevant to treating the disorder since the previously responsible one is rendered defective thus explaining defective medicine. It also leads to the need to research and develop new medicine to compensate for the defective one due to antibiotic resistance. This additional cost is always unexpected and it explains a crisis /shock to the medicine.