Tetracycline - How It Works
Clinical pharmacology details from the US FDA-approved label: how Tetracycline works in your body, how it's absorbed, how long it stays active, and how it's eliminated.
CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY Tetracyclines are readily absorbed and are bound to plasma protein in varying degrees.
They are concentrated by the liver in the bile and excreted in the urine and feces at high concentrations in a biologically active form.
Microbiology Tetracyclines are primarily bacteriostatic and exert their antimicrobial effect by the inhibition of protein synthesis by binding to the 30S ribosomal subunit.
Tetracycline is active against a broad range of gram- negative and gram-positive organisms.
The drugs in the tetracycline class have closely similar antimicrobial spectra, and cross-resistance among them is common.
Tetracycline has been shown to be active against most isolates of the following bacteria, both in vitro and in clinical infections as described in the INDICATIONS AND USAGE section of the package insert.
Gram-negative Bacteria Acinetobacter species Bartonella bacilliformis Brucella species Campylobacter fetus Enterobacter aerogenes Escherichia coli Francisella tularensis Haemophilus ducreyi Haemophilus influenzae Klebsiella species Klebsiella granulomatis Neisseria gonorrhoeae Shigella species Vibrio cholerae Yersinia pestis Gram-positive Bacteria Bacillus anthracis Streptococcus pyogenes Streptococcus pneumoniae Staphylococcus aureus Listeria monocytogenes Anaerobes Bacteroides species Clostridium species Fusobacterium fusiforme Propionibacterium acnes Other Bacteria Actinomyces species Borrelia recurrentis Chlamydophila psittaci Chlamydia trachomatis Rickettsiae Treponema pallidum Treponema pallidum subspecies pertenue Parasites Entamoeba species Balantidium coli Susceptibility Testing For specific information regarding susceptibility test interpretive criteria and associated test methods and quality control standards recognized by FDA for this drug, please see: https://www.fda.gov/STIC .