True or False: There are antibiotics that target viruses?
Major natural source of antibiotics is fungi, bacteria and other prokaryotes. There are hundreds of antibiotics present today , few of them are as follows.
Antibiotic Penicillin is obtained from a fungi Penicillium chrysogenum, P .notataum.
Streptomycin is obtained from bacterium Streptomyces griseus.
Tetracyclines/Aureomycin is extracted from Streptomyces aureofaciens.
Soil bacteria found in nature are capable of producing their own antibiotics, thus they can serve as a great reservoir of antibiotics.
Most of the antibiotics are obtained from soil bacteria Actinomycete and Streptomyces.
For example: Antibiotic vancomycin is extracted from Amycolatopsis orientalis and is used in skin infections.
Antibiotics are substances which are able to inhibit or destroy growth of microorganisms. These antibiotics are used to treat infections caused by bacteria, fungi etc.
Antibiotics are not capable of affecting the viruses as they lack cell wall and are rather surrounded by a protein coat. Also, viruses are capable of invading healthy cells of host and replicate themselves in host cells, thus antibiotics are ineffective on viruses.
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