Metal tolerance and antibiotic resistance patterns of a bacterial population isolated from sea water.
The total aerobic heterotrophic and metal-resistant bacterial communities were studied in marine water. The resistance patterns, expressed as MICs, for 81 bacterial isolates to eight heavy metals were surveyed by using the agar dilution method. A great proportion of the isolates were sensitive to cadmium (99%), mercury (91%), zinc (84%) and cobalt (83%). On the other hand, 94%, 40%, 35% and 22% were resistant to lead, nickel, arsenate and copper, respectively. The majority of the tested strains (95.06%) were multiple metal-resistant, with pentametal resistance as the major pattern (25.9%). The response of the isolates to 11 tested antibiotics was tested and ranged from complete resistance to total sensitivity and multiple antibiotic resistance was exhibited by 70.38% of the total isolated population. The highest incidence of metal-antibiotic double resistance existed between lead and all antibiotics (100%), copper and penicillin (95%) and nickel and ampicillin (83.3%).
Sabry
S A
SA
Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.
Ghozlan
H A
HA
Abou-Zeid
D M
DM
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001419:Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects*; D003300:Copper / Q000494:pharmacology; D004352:Drug Resistance, Microbial; D007854:Lead / Q000494:pharmacology; D008670:Metals / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D014871:Water Microbiology; D015032:Zinc / Q000494:pharmacology
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D008670:Metals; D007854:Lead; D003300:Copper; D015032:Zinc