After the previous investigations of pathogens the class
went further into testing what pathogens are resistant or susceptible to certain things.
Materials:
- swabs
- antibiotics
- testing paper
- tweezer
- Bunsen burner
- piquet
Procedure:
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Cinnamon and Clove Mouthwash |
After preparing plates with MRSA, MRSA isolate, Staph
aureus, and Staph aureus motile, we then, using the aseptic technique with the
tweezer, placed a sample of penicillin (1), metecillin (2), vacomycin (3), linezolid (4), and augmentin (5) on each of the
samples and placed the samples in the incubator.
We also prepared plates of the
staph oral bacteria and tested different concentrations of salt solutions on
one of the plates and on the other tried different mouth cleaning products of
lemon, clove, a cinnamon and clove mouthwash, toothpaste, and chlorohexadine.
The last plate was our unknown which
had already proven to be resistant to penicillin. So this time we treated the
bacteria with penicillin on one side and an augmentin on the other.
Results/application:
The next day the Staph aureus proved to be
resistant to the penicillin and methicillin and susceptible to the rest.
The
Staph aureus motile was sensitive to all of the antibiotics.
MRSA showed itself
to be resistant to penicillin and methicillin, susceptible to vacomycin and
linezolid and intermediate to augmentin.
The MRSA isolate was penicillin,
vacomycin and augmentin resistant and methicillin and linezolid susceptible.
Out
of these linezolid had the greatest effect every time showing it to be the most
effective antibiotic. Linezolid has recently been developed and bacteria like
MRSA do not have any defenses against it.
When checking the oral bacteria, the salt treatment seemed
to have no effect on the bacteria. We suspect this is because we could not get
the salt to fully dissolve in the water. However the other plate did have some
results. The lemon was ineffective. The clove and cinnamon mouthwash had a
moderate effect. However, it was the toothpaste and the chlorohexadine that had the
greatest effect.
So toothpaste is a good
investment in oral hygiene and if I want my mouthwash to do more then make my
breath smell good I should look for some with chlorohexadine.
The last plate with our unknown had results as well. Once
again the penicillin had no effect. However the augment did. The augment
contains clavulanic acid which destroys β-lactamase in the pathogen which
prevent it from destroying the lactase ring in penicillin allowing the
penicillin to do its job of breaking down the cell wall. This tells us that our
bacteria has β-lactamase that works against the penicillin and it has a cell
wall.
The most curious part of our results that we did not understand was there
was two rings around the augment the inside one containing no growth and the
outer one containing some growth.