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Question:

How do bacteria become resistant to antibiotics? What is the biological mechanism?

Answer:

Random genetic mutations in bacteria can create strands that are resistant to antibiotics. Natural selection makes antibiotic resistant bacteria more likely to survive and flourish while other strands die out.

Transformation is the phenomenon in which genetic material from dead, lysed bacteria can be incorporated into living bacteria, enabling them to acquire new traits such as greater virulence or resistance to antibiotics. Transduction is a process by which virus particles that infect bacteria can transfer genes for resistance to antibiotics to previously sensitive bacteria. Conjugation is a process by which living bacteria exchange plasmids through a cell-cell bridge called a pilus.