Practice Questions

TLS Online TPP Program

#Question id: 1033

A research lab is trying to produce new antibiotics. They come up with drugs that detach the hydrophilic heads from the phospholipids in plasma membranes. This drug

#Unit 4. Cell Communication and Cell Signaling

would be highly toxic and completely useless for human beings-we also have plasma membranes with hydrophilic head groups!
would be highly toxic only to bacteria, making it an excellent drug to develop and test further. Humans have a different phospholipid structure in their cell plasma membranes than bacteria.
would generally not be toxic enough to damage Gram-negative bacteria, as their plasma membranes lie under a thick layer of peptidoglycan.
would be highly toxic for human beings, but might be useful as a topical antibiotic skin cream. The top layer of skin cells is dead anyway, so it wouldn't matter if this damaged those cells. It could NOT be taken internally, though, by human beings.