Some of us have been creating strains of resistant bacteria. No, this isn’t through lack of personal hygiene, we’re all much too clean for that sort of thing. Instead we have been producing the conditions suitable for bacterial conjugation in the lab in an experiment provided by Survival Rivals.
The experiment was an all round success (of course!). We took two strains of bacteria, each resistant to a particular type of antibiotic. We then ‘mated’ the two stains by putting them together in a nutrient broth and leaving them at 30°C for 24hrs. Next, we streaked the bacteria onto nutrient agar which had been inoculated with antibiotics and left this over the weekend. The results showed some bacteria had gained resistance to both types of antibiotics, which could only have been as a result of bacterial conjugation where the resistant plasmid from one strain of the bacteria had been passed into the other stain of resistant bacteria. This was shown by colonies of this ‘dual resistant’ bacteria being able to grow on agar plates with both types of antibiotic present.
The Survival Rivals website has lots of additional information on this experiment, including an animation of bacterial conjugation.
Manchester University have produced a series of videos on aseptic technique, some of which we watched in preparation for this experiment. They’re all here.
So, thanks to the Survival Rivals team for providing the experiment and well done to the students for completing it successfully.
Now, wash your hands.
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