Is it possible for microorganisms like bacteria to evolve a resistance to power chemical agents such as bleach? If so, why do experts in sanitation recommend that people clean kitchen surfaces with bleach to kill bacteria?
What about anti-bacterial soap? Are these also contributing to "superbugs?
Also, how do antibiotic drugs work exactly? Do they destroy the infection directly, or do they cause it to have some sort of biological problem, such as:
Prevention of “eating” ability
failure to reproduce
Preventing oxygen consumption
Or the like…
Bacteria are unlikely to ever become resistant to chemical agents such as bleach because they attack the cells in a number of very destructive ways. Mutations that confer resistance to one of the attacks will never be selected for because the chemicals can kill in other ways.
Antibiotics, on the other hand, are very specific in what they disrupt. There are many different types, some disrupt cell wall formation, or turning glucose into energy, or protein formation. In most cases, antibiotics do not actually kill the bacteria. They merely prevent it from growing or dividing and either the immune system kills it or the cell suicides. This gives the bacteria more of a chance to protect itself.
A slight nit:
Bacterial colonies that build up a thick layer of polysaccharides (i.e. “goo”) are rendered somewhat resistant because the chemical agent cannot get at them. If your environment is bad enough to allow bacterial mats to form, a regular, and inadequate, dousing with bleach will cause selection for slimier bugs. This situation should never arise in any reasonably well kept house.
The simple chemical antiseptics kill bacteria in very fundamental ways. Although it is possible to develop extremophile strains of bacteria under some conditions, those are unlikely to become widely spread. Yes, it is possible, but not probable. High frequency use of chlorine bleach may be interfering with whole ecosystems, in fact, as it increases in concentration in effluents from human habitations.
Antibiotics are much more selective in their actions, since it is usually the intent to kill a specific type, or sub-type of microbiota, often inside, or on the skin of another creature, and the action must not harm the intended beneficiary. The incredibly complex nature of acquired resistance in microbial strains is not limited to single species. Survivors of one species of critter which have a chemical anti-agent for a particular antibiotic can transmit that chemical to unrelated species that may never have had contact.
The problem is still made worse by incomplete, or inappropriate dose schedules of antibiotics, and the massive presence of antibiotics in animal feed, and the resultant food web of the ecosystems in modern farming. The manure piles of a dairy farm have huge colonies of bacteria, and residual concentrations of antibiotics. Although no animal may be infected by the bacteria in the heap, still the colonies of bacteria are grown in multiple generations in the presence of chemicals which specifically make particular energy economies less effective. So, the “information” of resistance is preserved, even without the existence of an infection.
Microbes don’t plan, they just die. Survival of the fittest is just one way of looking at it. Extinction of the least fit is a better way of keeping it in mind. Whatever you do will kill most of the bacteria in a given case, but nothing will kill them all. So, you have to keep aiming at a moving target. Or, in this case, a few billion moving targets.
Tris
Antibiotics usually bind to a specific site on an enzyme or protien that renders it useless. Often, bacteria will develop a resistance by changing the configuration at the binding site. Once this happens, the antibiotic needs to be redsigned to fit the new binding site or a completely new antibiotic.
Antibiotics need to be made specific, or they will not recognize the good cells from the bad cells. Substances like bleach are not specific. Just imagine if the doctor told you to drink bleach to treat an infection.
As squink pointed out, bacteria can be very resilliant under extreme circumstances. I have seen bacteria grow in solutions of formaldehyde and cyanide. Bleach is much more destructyive than the others. I have never seen bacteria survive bleach, but I can see how squinks senario may work.
I do not know what soap companies mean when they advertise their product as anti-bacterial. The bottle I have claims to have Triclosan in it. Triclosan is a very powerfull antibiotic. Bacteria can become resistant to it link. It doesn’t look good. This compound looks very similar to dioxin, a very toxic compound in parts per billion concentrations. After reading about triclosan, I will no longer purchase products with it.
Triclosan, properly known as chloroxyxenol, is an antibacterial, not an antibiotic; it’s NOTHING like dioxin (I’ve been wrists-deep in triclosan; ain’t dead yet).
However, I do avoid anibacterial/germicidal cleansers; such things do a great job of fostering resistant bacteria, and not such a great job of disinfecting. The fact is that the common flora of the bathroom and kitchen seldom do any harm, and it’s silly to go to such measures to kill them.