ABSTRACT
Isolation and characterisatics of an antibiotics producing bacterium collected from the soil near the arbatior in artesan market Enugu was achieved by characterizing a collection of 74 soil bacteria, including eubacteria and actinomycetes, according to their ability to produce antibacterial antibiotics and their growth responses to 43 physiological and nutritional tests. The characters which were selective for actinomycetes relative to eubacteria included growth on proline (l%w, /v) and humic acid (0.1 %) as sole sources of both carbon and nitrogen, growth on nitrate as a nitrogen source, and growth at pH 7.7-8.0.
Growth on proline (1 %) and humic acid (0.1 %) as sole carbonlnitrogen sources, growth on asparagine as a nitrogen source, and growth in the presence of vitamins were among the characteristics which allowed antibioticproducing actinomycetes to be differentiated from non-antibiotic-producing strains.
Several simple isolation media which incorporated the selective substrates identified by discriminant analysis succeeded in increasing the proportion of actinomycetes isolated from soil samples. Furthermore, the percentage of isolates capable of antibiotic production was considerably increased.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATION PAGE
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
AIM AND OBJECTIVES
LIMITATION
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
HISTORY OF BACTERIOLOGY
SAMPLE COLLECTION AND EXPERIMENTATION
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sampling procedure
Methods
Measurement of antimicrobial activity.
Utilization of carbon sources.
Utilization of combined carbon and nitrogen sources.
This test was carried out on a carbon utilization agar similar to the above but with the nitrogen source [(NH4)2S041o mitted. Aspartate, threonine and proline were tested at a carbon level equivalent to 10 g 1-1 (1 %, w/v) glucose whilst humic acid (Aldrich) was tested at levels equivalent to both 1 % and 0.1% (w/v) glucose.
Utilization of nitrogen sources.
Growth tests.
Inoculation, incubation and growth measurement.
Coding of data
Data analysis.
Evaluation of selective substrates for actinomycetes and antibwticproducing actinomycetes.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Results and Discussion
Antibiotic-producing ability of the isolates
Discriminant analysis of actinornycetes versus eubacteria
Table 1. Discriminant variables for actinomycetes and eubacteria
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATION AND REFERENCES
5.1 CONCLUSION
5.2 RECOMMENDATION
5.3 REFERENCES
