Ampicillin is a drug that is very commonly given to get rid of bacterial infections. What structure do you think it targets?

a) Cell wall

b) Plasma membrane

c) Membrane Glycoproteins

d) Ribosomes

e) None of the above


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The correct answer is A. There is ABSOLUTELY no memorization needed for this question (except for understanding the difference between eukaryotes and prokaryotes). In this case, the antibiotic must affect some part of prokaryotes that is NOT present in human eukaryotic cell. This is because if an antibiotic affected human cells and bacterial cells, then it would be called an anti-humanbiotic – not just an antibiotic. In this case, the only thing that is present in bacterial cells that is not present in eukaryotic cells (that is also an answer choice) is answer choice A.