Question

What is the difference between a bacterial strain that is resistant to penicillin and one that is sensitive to penicillin? What, specifically, causes the resistant bacterial strain to not be affected by the penicillin?

Answer 1

The penicillin-resistant bacterial strain means it would be able to survive even though if penicillin is present while a penicillin-sensitive strain means, the bacteria will die if it is exposed to penicillin.

penicillin is a beta-lactam antibiotic, bacteria which are resistant to penicillin has a gene for lactamase enzyme and produces an active enzyme. This enzyme cleaves the penicillin and makes it completely ineffective. The presence of the lactamase enzyme imparts resistance against penicillin or other beta-lacam antibiotcs to bacteria.