Antibiotic disrupts bacterial cell wall integrity causing osmotic rupture

Steps:

• Antibiotic blocks cross-links in peptidoglycan, the key component of bacterial cell walls.
• This weakens the wall's rigidity, preventing it from resisting internal turgor pressure.
• In hypotonic environments, water enters the cell via osmosis, swelling it uncontrollably.
• The fragile wall bursts, destroying the cell through lysis as described in statement 1.

Why C is correct:

• Statement 1 directly identifies osmotic lysis as the destructive mechanism, aligning with the definition of hypotonic lysis where weakened walls fail under osmotic pressure.

Why the others are wrong:

• A includes 3, but cell walls are not "partly permeable"; permeability relates to the plasma membrane, not wall structure.
• B includes 2 and 3; 2 is irrelevant as bacterial walls use peptidoglycan, not cellulose, which forms hydrogen bonds in plants.
• D relies only on 2, which misapplies plant cell biology to bacteria.

Final answer: C