Bacteria are the common name for prokaryotic cells, which lack a nucleus. Rather they have a nucleoid region where their DNA is stored in direct contact with their cytoplasm. Their DNA, through transcription and translation, directs ribosomes to assemble proteins. They reproduce by binary fission, and are mostly heterotrophic. Bacteria can exchange DNA in three ways: transformation, transduction, and conjugation. In transformation a bacterial cell becomes competent, or able to take up DNA from the surrounding fluids. In conjugation two bacterial cells, a donor and a recipient join and DNA is transferred from one to the other. In these cases the new DNA either incorporates itself into the existing DN

With the information now known, efflux pumps opens up opportunities for pharmaceutical companies to find compounds that will disrupt this microbial activity. As drugs, efflux-pump inhibitors aren't expected to have a significant antimicrobial effect on their own and companies are now developing these compounds. They are expected to reverse acquired drug resistance in microbes that are susceptible to antibacterial and antifungal drugs. Also efflux-pump inhibitors might make some microbes that are intrinsically drug resistant vulnerable to antibiotics, and those efflux-pump inhibitors will reduce the chance that bacteria will successfully reproduce enough times to select for a drug-resistance mutation (Christensen).

Penicillium and Streptomyces are major sources of antibiotics used therapeutically. Bacillus are the most notable bacterial group from which useful antibiotics have been derived. Synthetic antimicrobials, e.g., the sulfonamides, have always constituted an important source of antimicrobials. Semisynthetic antimicrobials are those derived from chemical modifications of naturally occurring antibiotics. This constitutes an ever more important group of antimicrobials as new drugs, with special properties, are developed.

Efflux pumps are not the only problem, many bacteria were capable of using sporulation to their advantage in the face of' antibiotics and other threats. Like plant seeds, they would go dormant, toughen their cell walls to a nearly impermeable state, and wait. When conditions were favorable, the bacteria would reactivate, their cell walls once again becoming permeable. Some forms of resistance involved the bacteria's use of genes that triggered sporulation when the microbes were threatened, or created an even less vulnerable cell wall at the time of sporulation (Garrett 428).

Antibiotics are substances produced by microorganisms that kill or inhibit other microorganisms from growing or reproducing. Antibiotics are products of the earth and are all-natural.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Christensen Efflux, Christensen Antibiotics, Penicillium Streptomyces, Christensen Microbes, , Health Organization, Englishman Penicillin, Stapleton Fleming, efflux pumps, Brown Science, Scientist Vol10, efflux-pump inhibitors, christensen efflux, christensen efflux pumps, resistance bacteria, microbes resistant antibiotics, vertical evolution, cell membrane, mutation selection, genetic processes, exchange genes, drugs efflux-pump inhibitors, minimum concentration required, bacterial population, british medical journal,
Approximate Word count = 2085
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)