Question

Active infections are often treated with a combination of several antibiotics at once to reduce the chances of antibiotic resistance. Why would this procedure be less likely to create a population of resistant bacteria than giving one antibiotic and then trying another and possibly another in sequence?

Answer 1

A bacterium would need to have a mutation caused by insertion or deletion of a sequence, which is much less likely to occur than a base pair substitution, in order to survive several antibiotics at a time.
Giving one antibiotic at a time would allow the bacteria enough time to tailor the correct mutations they needed to resist any antibiotics they might come in contact with in the future.
It is more likely that a few bacteria would have mutations allowing them to survive a single antibiotic at a time than that any would have multiple mutations making them resistant to several antibiotics.
While bacteria may be able to survive the destruction of one of their genes, it is less likely that they would be able to survive the destruction of several genes at the same time.

Answer 2

Giving one antibiotic at a time would allow the bacteria enough time to tailor the correct mutations they needed to resist any antibiotics they might come in contact with in the future.

Answer 3

thanks peep

Answer 4

Good job not smart. Should change your name to NowSmart!