Searching For Antibiotic Producing Bacteria
Location
CoLab
Start Date
3-5-2019 10:30 AM
End Date
3-5-2019 11:45 AM
Document Type
Poster
Description
Due to the rise in antibiotic resistance, the need for new antibiotics is critical. The majority of the antibiotics that have already been discovered have been found in soil, but so much of the Earth's soil has not been studied. My search for antibiotic producing bacteria started by collecting a soil sample from my backyard in LaCygne, KS. I then serial diluted my soil in order to find bacteria that presented with zones of inhibition. I was able to collect 15 bacterial colonies that produced zones of inhibitions on the serial dilution plates. Those 15 colonies were then transferred to a master plate. I took each colony from the master plate and tested them against the safe relatives of the ESKAPE pathogens to see which colonies were able to produce zones of inhibitions against the strains. Three of the colonies presented zones by the end of the antibiotic screening process. One of the colonies was able to produce a zone against two of the safe relative ESKAPE pathogens. Ultimately, I chose this colony to solely study and made a quadrant streak in order to isolate a single colony. Once the single colony was isolated, I began metabolic testing to find as much information as possible about the bacteria’s biochemical properties. The ultimate goal of the sequencing is to find out at least what the genus level of the organism is.
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Searching For Antibiotic Producing Bacteria
CoLab
Due to the rise in antibiotic resistance, the need for new antibiotics is critical. The majority of the antibiotics that have already been discovered have been found in soil, but so much of the Earth's soil has not been studied. My search for antibiotic producing bacteria started by collecting a soil sample from my backyard in LaCygne, KS. I then serial diluted my soil in order to find bacteria that presented with zones of inhibition. I was able to collect 15 bacterial colonies that produced zones of inhibitions on the serial dilution plates. Those 15 colonies were then transferred to a master plate. I took each colony from the master plate and tested them against the safe relatives of the ESKAPE pathogens to see which colonies were able to produce zones of inhibitions against the strains. Three of the colonies presented zones by the end of the antibiotic screening process. One of the colonies was able to produce a zone against two of the safe relative ESKAPE pathogens. Ultimately, I chose this colony to solely study and made a quadrant streak in order to isolate a single colony. Once the single colony was isolated, I began metabolic testing to find as much information as possible about the bacteria’s biochemical properties. The ultimate goal of the sequencing is to find out at least what the genus level of the organism is.
Comments
The faculty supervisor for this project was Melissa Beaty, Biology.