Bacteriocide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A bacteriocide or bactericide is a substance that kills bacteria and, preferably, nothing else. Bactericides are either disinfectants, antiseptics or antibiotics.

[edit] Important Functional Groups in a Bactericidal Substance

The most used bactericidal disinfectants are those applying

[edit] Bacteriocidal Antiseptics

As antiseptics (i.e., germicide agents that can be used on human or animal body, skin, mucoses, wounds and the like), few of the above mentioned disinfectants can be used, under proper conditions (mainly concentration, pH, temperature and toxicity toward man/animal). Among them, important are some

Others are generally not applicable as safe antiseptics, either because of their corrosive or toxic nature.

[edit] Bacteriocidal Antibiotics

Bacteriocidal antibiotics kill bacteria; bacteriostatic antibiotics only slow their growth or reproduction.

Penicillin is a bactericide, as are cephalosporins. Aminoglycosidic antibiotics can act in both a bactericidic manner (by disrupting cell wall precursor leading to lysis) or bacteriostatic manner (by binding to 30s ribosomal subunit and reducing translation fidelity leading to inaccurate protein synthesis)

Other bactericidal antibiotics include the fluoroquinolones, nitrofurans, vancomycin, monobactams, co-trimoxazole, and metronidazole.

In other languages