Preliminary Findings of Kanamycin Resistant Microbes in Deionized Water in An Agar Culture Survey

Abstract

Microbes are present in many niches in the environment, indicating the diversified adaptation strategies to different environmental and nutritional conditions. Depending on the conditions of the drinking water pipelines and maintenance of the water distribution network, different types of microbes have been found in tap water. This work reports initial findings from a survey of the microbial diversity in tap and deionized water in a research laboratory in Singapore. Conventional spread plate microbial culture on LB agar supplemented with or without antibiotics followed by multi-day incubation at 25^oC was undertaken. Results reveal many yellow and orange, round, medium-sized colonies on LB agar from deionized and tap water inoculum over an 8 days cultivation period. In terms of culture on LB agar with antibiotics, no colonies were found on plates with ampicillin antibiotics after 4 days of incubation with tap and deionized water as inoculum. On the other hand, small, beige, round colonies were found on LB agar with kanamycin from deionized water inoculum after 4 days of incubation at 25^oC. Overall, preliminary results obtained suggest presence of multiple types of microbes in tap and deionized water with some microbes being resistant to kanamycin antibiotics.

Keywords: kanamycin, ampicillin, spread plate culture, microbial ecology, LB agar