Defying Death: Antibiotic Resistance of E.Coli to Neomycin Sulfate

Overview

Acquired antibiotic resistance is making human diseases that were once easy to treat very dangerous and deadly. We were interested in whether bacteria exposed to low levels of an antibiotic could become resistant to significantly higher levels. The KL16 strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli; K12 parental strain) was used to investigate this question, and exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light was used to increase the rate of mutagenesis. Using this technique, low-level resistance to G418 sulfate was easily derived. Additionally, while it was found that the resistant bacteria could withstand higher concentrations of the drug, this acquired resistance was somewhat limited. Then, we determined that the bacteria had not inherently acquired multidrug resistance to the antibiotics streptomycin and ampicillin. This data suggests that low-level resistance could be more dangerous than previously thought, and makes assessing how resistant a bacterial strain is unpredictable.

Competition history

• AJAS 2018 Category not listed

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