Bacterial genetics/resistance

[aspiringmd1015]

Doing this from Kaplan, the chapter right after bacteria. Looks like a load of BS, looked at it in MRS, only half a page i believe. How High yield is this? and any other book/source i can do this from?

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[Robotic Dock]

Hi, actually that's not a really high-yield chapter although you may see some questions from it on occasions. I have already done 10,000 questions from 5 different Qbanks. So, I know what is important or not. That's a pretty tough stuff given the Kaplan book. I studied with the related video 3 times. Still look hard! If you are in rush and the exam is soon, I personally recommend you to focus more on the questions rather than the chapter. Specially USMLE world can give you what you want from that. Any other question you may have is appreciable. Good luck with your study!

 

[aspiringmd1015]

10,000 questions? lol take the exam already

 

[Phloston]

This stuff isn't HY but it does show up. And just to add really sad "humor" to this thread, I did over 17,500 unique questions for Step 1.

Know that bacterial resistance is generally plasmid-encoded, except fluoroquinolone resistance, which is chromosome-encoded.

Know that tetracycline resistance is increased efflux / decreased in flux.

Know that aminoglycoside resistance is bacterial adenylation, acetylation or phosphorylation of the drug. I encountered this in two different questions (both were like 20% answered correctly questions).

Know that S. pneumoniae is a natural transformer. If it acquires resistance to a drug, it's because it picked up the gene directly from the outside environment (i.e., no pilus or phage).

The rest you just have to use your intuition. If you know the MOA of chloramphenicol is that it inhibits 50S acetyltransferase, then the answer might be bacterial "alteration of enzymatic acetylation." They do that to see if you understand what's actually going on.

Hope that helps,

 

[aspiringmd1015]

the resistance part is explained well within Kaplan, just the genetics part(conjugation, sex pilus etc) is the part I'm not sure about

 

[TheBunkMD]

This stuff isn't HY but it does show up. And just to add really sad "humor" to this thread, I did over 17,500 unique questions for Step 1.

Know that bacterial resistance is generally plasmid-encoded, except fluoroquinolone resistance, which is chromosome-encoded.

Know that tetracycline resistance is increased efflux / decreased in flux.

Know that aminoglycoside resistance is bacterial adenylation, acetylation or phosphorylation of the drug. I encountered this in two different questions (both were like 20% answered correctly questions).

Know that S. pneumoniae is a natural transformer. If it acquires resistance to a drug, it's because it picked up the gene directly from the outside environment (i.e., no pilus or phage).

The rest you just have to use your intuition. If you know the MOA of chloramphenicol is that it inhibits 50S peptidyltransferase, then the answer might be bacterial "alteration of enzymatic acetylation." They do that to see if you understand what's actually going on.

Hope that helps,

Thanks. Awesome advice.
Any suggestions on which sources to learn this stuff? Cell bio/molec and genetics are def my weaknesses. I have a feeling it would hamper my ability to answer some micro or "experiment" questions.

 

[Phloston]

Thanks. Awesome advice.
Any suggestions on which sources to learn this stuff? Cell bio/molec and genetics are def my weaknesses. I have a feeling it would hamper my ability to answer some micro or "experiment" questions.

Just QBank Qs. Consolidation of resources is key. I wouldn't buy any books on this stuff. Kaplan QBank was probably more OCD on these topics, so that would probably be the best QBank for specifically this information.

 

[TheBunkMD]

Just QBank Qs. Consolidation of resources is key. I wouldn't buy any books on this stuff. Kaplan QBank was probably more OCD on these topics, so that would probably be the best QBank for specifically this information.

Alright, awesome. Thanks!