Does it have something to do with the fact that ampicillin acts only after the cells divide and kanamycin resistance has something to do with the ribosomes and then it inhibits the translation?
I am not sure and confused. Any help would be appreciated.
Ampicillin resistance is a bit different than many others because the resistance gene (beta-lactamase) is a periplasmic enzyme. So it inactivates the ampicillin in the medium surrounding the colony. This is why you get satellite colonies, if the plates are old or the drug concentration is low, then you have reduced levels of amp around the colony. Similarly in liquid broth, the ampicillin is mostly gone by the time the culture has grown.
Kanamycin (and many other) antibiotics are only inactivated after entering the cell, so the extracellular drug concentration is not noticeably changed during the growth of the colony.
The growth rate (especially for Kan) I would think would be somewhat dependent upon the concentration. So you can't really compare Amp and Kan growth rates.
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