Why is penicillin ineffective against viruses?? why is penicillin ineffective in destroying...?

viruses or animal cells??

Why is penicillin ineffective against viruses?? why is penicillin ineffective in destroying...?house call

Penicillin inhibits cell wall synthesis in bacteria. It is ineffective against viruses or animal cells.

Why is penicillin ineffective against viruses?? why is penicillin ineffective in destroying...?matchless

Penicillin interferes with the ability of the bacteria to maintain the integrity of the cell wall. Neither viruses nor animal cells have a cell wall.
Penicillin prevents the formation of bacterial cell walls. As such, it does not effect viruses, animal plant or fungal cells. or bacteria without cell walls.
what harold said
Penicillin is an antibiotic and antibiotics destroy bacteria bc they destroy the cell wall of bacteria. Viruses and animal cells do not have cell walls so it has no effect on their cells. It works on bacteria cell walls by inactivating an enzyme that helps cross-link the cell walls by binding to the enzyme.
To add to that. Penicillin inhibits peptidoglycan crosslinking. The bacterial cell wall is made of peptidoglycan. Penicillin only kills dividing cells because of this. It doesn't work at all for lots of bacteria now, because they have developed ways of being resistant, such as a mutation in the enzyme responsible for peptidoglycan crosslinking.

That is why when you take an antibiotic your doctor tells you to finish the bottle even if you feel better half way through. If you almost kill the infection and you stop, some of the few surviving bacteria some may have confered resistance and when the infection comes back, the antibiotics might not work so well anymore.
what penicillin does is it causes the bacterial membrane to break down, because animal cells have a different type of membrane it doesn't work on them, same thing with viruses. However the overuse of anti-biotics has caused bacteria to change the makeup of their membrane/become immune to anti-biotics.

At least that's what my biology teacher told me