Title : Plasmid profiling of antibiotic resistant organisms isolated from hospital effluents discharged into Nworie River, Imo State, Nigeria
Abstract:
The emergence of multiple antibiotic resistance in bacteria and the indiscriminate use of antibiotics contribute to the dissemination of resistant pathogen in the environment. Hospital effluents are potential sources of antibiotic resistant bacteria which, if released into the rivers leads to the contamination of the water by the resistant strains which are potential threat to human health as they might have direct access to man or transported from sea animals to man through food. Plasmids are major mechanism for the spread of antibiotic resistant gene in bacteria population (Fang etc all., 2008). Plasmid profiling is one of the methods used to determine and characterize antibiotic resistance traits in bacteria. In this study, a total of eighteen isolates were screened for antibiotic susceptibility out of which eight (8) isolates were resistant to at least five antibiotics. The isolates were tested against ten (10) different antibiotics using the disc diffusion method while the plasmid DNA were extracted using the TENS extraction method and separated by agarose gel electrophoresis of which four out of the resistant strains had plasmid DNA.
