Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Department

Biology

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

After the discovery of antibiotics, antibiotics have been increasingly implemented into human and veterinary medicine. In addition, antibiotics are inserted into animal feed for non-therapeutic purposes, which potentially leads to the development of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. When the livestock excrete waste onto the soil, the antibiotic resistant bacteria are introduced to the environment. With soil collected from different farms throughout the Bowling Green area, the microbial communities were analyzed to determine its bacterial compositions and their resistances to common antibiotics through a modified agar dilution technique. Once resistant colonies were isolated, they underwent more testing to determine if the colonies could be potential pathogens and express multidrug resistance. Through these methods, possible pathogenic enteric bacteria were identified. While the soils did show increased amounts of antibiotic resistant bacteria because of livestock fecal matter, this rise in antibiotic resistant bacteria does not necessitate an immediate public health concern because the soil bacteria would need to be either ingested or introduced into the bloodstream to produce an infection. However, further research is needed to identify the antibiotic resistant strains to determine if the strains had any chance of infecting humans.

Advisor(s) or Committee Chair

Dr. Simran Banga, Dr. Kenneth Crawford, Dr. Leila Watkins

Disciplines

Biology | Microbiology

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