3 ms·

What is the net functional difference between an "antibiotic" and "stimulating antibody production"?

• hga 12y ago
  "Stimulating antibody production" means you're protected from the antigen for some period of time, be it a virus, or at the other end of things in the case of tetanus, against the neurotoxin that's produced by the bacteria responsible for it. If there are enough antibodies in your system, they'll latch onto their specific antigen, which triggers other parts of the immune system to deal with it. Antibiotics only work while their level in the body is high, and they pretty much are limited to zapping bacteria, by going after things that are different in them from the class of more evolved organisms that includes everything from yeast to humans (many have cell walls like plants, their protein producing machines are slightly different, etc.). They are largely derived from compounds molds evolved to produce, to allow them to better ecologically compete (there are also some bacteria produced antibiotics, although I don't know if any are used as drugs).