Antibiotic Resistance and Susceptibility In Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus When Nutrient Levels In Media Is Limited

Bacterial infections are becoming more difficult to treat with antibiotics. The bacteria are resistance to the antibiotics so they become much harder to kill. This becomes a problem for people who acquire infections throughout their life. The goal of this experiment is to see if limiting nutrients for Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus will increase the tolerance for antibiotics. Bacteria were grown in nutrient broth with different dilution ratios and plated on agar plates with the same dilution. Antibiotics were added to the agar plates and the Kirby Bauer method was used to determine if the antibiotics were tolerant or resistant. For S. aureus, streptomycin, oxacillin, gentamycin and neomycin show an extremely significant p value of \u3c .0001. Amoxicillin-clavulanic acid shows an extremely significant value of \u3c .004. For E. coli, gentamycin, neomycin and kanamycin shows an extremely significant p value of \u3c .0001. Streptomycin shows an extreme significant of \u3c .0004. Overall, S aureus shows an increase in tolerance when limiting the nutrients. For E. coli most of the antibiotics show an increase in tolerance, but there are a few that do not show any significance at all. Oxacillin, gentamycin and neomycin show a significant decrease in antibiotic sensitivity when the dilution ratio increases. However, the tolerance level of the antibiotic went from susceptible to resistance