Origins of Antibiotic Resistance

This activity guides the analysis of a published scientific figure from a study on whether antibiotic resistance genes evolved before or after the introduction of modern-day antibiotics.

In this study, scientists collected bacteria from locations that had never been exposed to humans. They then tested these bacteria for resistance to a variety of antibiotics. The figure shows the percentages of Gram-positive bacteria (Panel A) and Gram-negative bacteria (Panel B) that were resistant to each antibiotic. The antibiotics are grouped by the protein or pathway that they target in bacterial cells: the 30S ribosome, 50S ribosome, folate pathway, DNA/RNA synthesis, cell wall synthesis, or cell membrane.

The “Educator Materials” document includes a captioned figure, background information, graph interpretation, and discussion questions. The “Student Handout” includes a captioned figure and background information.

The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive.