Isolation and screening of soil bacteria with the potential to produce antibiotics

Abstract

Antibiotics are one of the most important commercially exploited second- ary metabolites produced by bacteria and employed in a wide range. Soil samples were collected from five different locations in the school com- pound of Federal University Of Technology Minna, Niger State (Bosso campus). The total viable bacterial counts ranged from 2.11 x 105 - 4.45 x 105 cfu/ml. The bacterial isolates were identified as Bacillus subtilis, Ba- cillus licheniformis, Bacillus polymxa and Pseudomonas aeruginosa with Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus polymxa having the same frequency of occurrence of 30% while Bacillus licheniformis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa having the same freguency of 20%. The bacteria isolates were then screened for the potential to produce antibiotics. The bacteria iso- lated shows zone of inhibition on Staphylococcus auereus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella sp. and Pseudornonas aeruginosa, which suggest the evidence of antibiotics produced by those isolates from the soil.