Revista de biorremediación y biodegradación

Abstracto

Antibiotic Susceptibility and Heavy Metal Tolerance Pattern of Serratia Marcescens Isolated From Soil and Water

Natasha Nageswaran, P.W. Ramteke, O.P. Verma and Avantika Pandey

The antibiotic and metal tolerance patterns of Serratia marcescens strains isolated from soil and water around the Sangam region of Allahabad were obtained. Using the standard minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) for each antibiotic respectively, the Kirby-Bauer disc-diffusion method was used to obtain antibiotic resistance patterns of the Serratia strains and the MIC of the metals - chromium, cadmium, cobalt, copper, lead and nickel for each of the strains were also obtained. Plasmid curing was carried out for specific antibiotic and metal resistances to ascertain plasmid-borne transfer of resistance genes. Results obtained showed that Multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains of Serratia were resistant to certain metals as well suggesting specific metal-antibiotic resistant gene patterns in the different strains.