A Study on Antibiotics and Heavy Metals Resistance in Staphylococcus aureus Isolated from Mastitis in Cows

Abstract

The present study was conducted on Staphylococcus aureus isolated from clinical and subclinical cases of mastitis in cows. Isolates were diagnosed by conventional and biochemical tests and API kit which was used to confirm the identification of Staph. aureus. Antibiotic resistance of these bacteria were tested against Penicillin, Gentamicin, Oxacillin, Tetracycline, Erythromycin, methicilin, vancomycin and the heavy metals like cadmium chloride, zinc chloride, mercury chloride and copper. The genetic transformation of the standard strain of E. coli k12JM83 was done with the plasmid DNA purified from these study isolates. The results revealed that the location of antibiotic resistance genes were found to be on plasmid. Transformants were obtained at a frequency of (0.8 – 2.0) × 10-4. The results showed that location of heavy metals resistance genes were located on plasmid DNA also.