ANTIBIOTIC BROTHERS IN HARMONY TAKE AVENGE

An interesting post sent by one of the visitors!!!
Textbooks have taught us that antibiotics that are Bactericidal fall into 3 different classes: One that inhibit DNA replication and Repair,One that inhibit protein synthesis and the other which prevent cell wall synthesis. Research on different antibiotics from Dr. Collins Lab at Boston University has bought an extension to this textbook fact.
Though these three types of antibiotics have different affects on bacterial cells, they all converge on a pathway that causes avenge by generating Oxygen Free Radicals.
Earlier this year Professor Collins group reported that one class of antibiotics did produce hydroxy free radicals and caused DNA and protein damage in bacterial cells. To test this his colleagues Michael Kohanski and Daniel Dwyer from Boston University exposed E.Coli and Staphylococcus Aureus to each one of the three classes of antibiotics. Using Floroscent Dyes they looked for the presence of hydroxy radicals in both these bacterial cells.
In another experiment to show that hydroxy radicals was responsible for cell death,they blocked the radical formation by giving antioxidants and this resulted in the survival of bacteria with all types of Antibiotics.
However the other class of antibiotics, i.e the Bacteristatic class didnot inhibit bacterial growth by increasing free radicals in the bacterial cell.
It was also observed that both the Tri Carboxylic Acid cycle(TCA cycle) and electron transport chain of bacterial metabolism were responsible for the production of free radicals in the bacterial cell and so these antibiotics used the same pathway to increase the free radical formation.
The researchers hope that this study would help in designing of newer antibiotics which can be powerful at very low dosages.

Just staying with this topic of Antibiotic Prescription to the patients,I just wanted to know when so much hype has been going around PERSONALIZED MEDICINE, do doctors ever think while prescribing medicines what effect would antibiotic have on a specific patient!!!
Or is it just that they feel confident that there would be really no adverse affects based on their obseravtion from years treating a specific population.
Please comment.