The Enterobacter are often found in the feces of man and other warm blooded animals but have limited use as indicators of fecal contamination of foods and water since they are also often found as natural flora of non-fecal environments such as water and plants. This study proposes a method that may be useful for differentiating between fecal and non-fecal Enterobacter. Coliform bacteria associated with the human fecal environment often have a high incidence of multiple resistance to antibiotics. By determining multiple drug resistance and indexing Enterobacter in reference to their environmental source, it was discovered that isolates from human feces, raw sewage and certain foods demonstrated a higher index than isolates from rural soils, wild animal feces, cereal grains and other non-human environments. An index value greater than 0.2 indicated isolates from environments contaminated with human feces representing a high health risk while those isolates with an index of less than 0.2 came from relatively safe environments. Traditionally, the assessment of food borne health hazards is determined by measuring the quantity and kind of bacteria present. Drug resistance indexing will compliment these tests and aid in identifying serious bacterial contamination of foods. / Graduation date: 1981

The evolution of antibiotic resistance presents an escalating problem in the treatment of various infectious diseases worldwide. Although the origin of antibiotic resistance genes is not generally clearly documented, it has been thought that they evolved from specific genetic elements which eventually managed to spread to other microorganism of different strains and species through mobile genetics elements, transposons and plasmids. Extensively studying all aspects of these genes and their impact on the development of new treatments and drugs is of extreme importance. This study focuses on evolving and understanding how novel antibiotic resistance develops. Error prone PCR (EP-PCR) was used to introduce random mutation in an arr gene which confers high level resistance to rifampicin in E. coli. The clones obtained from EP-PCR were screened on different antibiotics with varying concentration in an attempt to isolate a clone with an increased minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) as compared to the wild type parent strain (pBstN49). Several clones showed decreased levels of resistance against rifampicin but however none showed any significant increase in any of the other antibiotic MICs tested.

by Lai-chu Wu. / Bibliography: leaves 212-241 / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1984

Thesis (Honors)--Liberty University Honors Program, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Honors)--Liberty University Honors Program, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.). / Written for the Dept. of Chemistry. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2007/08/29). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M Nursing)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2009. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Christina Sieloff. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-59).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1982. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-114).