Isolation and Identification of Antibiotic Producing Bacteria from Soil Samples of Abattoir in Lapai, Niger State, Nigeria

Antimicrobial agents or antibiotics are the most significant commercially available and utilized secondary metabolites, which are highly produced by the soil microbes (bacteria and fungi) and found to be effective and broad spectrum. Microbes produce metabolic products (antimicrobial agents) through the process called antibiosis. Majority of the classes of antibiotics used are derivatives of animals (microbes) and floras (plants). But currently, the microbial resistance is at the top gear which requires more effort to come up with novel structure, effectual, toxic free and reasonable cost of new antimicrobial products against microbial infections. In the present study, a trial was made to isolate, identify and characterize the antibiotic producing bacteria from the soil samples collected from different sites of abattoir in Lapai, using the standard microbiological techniques. A total of nine (9) bacterial of both groups (Gram positive and negative) which includes Corynebacterium diphtheriae, Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter aerogene, Clostridium specie, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas species, Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae were isolated in the course of the study. Pseudomonas species was the most frequently isolated bacteria (33.33%) while the rest of the isolates were 8.33% across the five different sampling sites. These isolates were further screened against some pathogenic microbes viz, Salmonella sp, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans. Three of the bacterial isolates isolated from the abattoir were found to exhibits antimicrobial activity against two pathogenic bacteria used in this study. This study indicates that some of the soil microorganisms could be an interesting source of antimicrobial bioactive substances.