A total of 37 street vended food samples were examined for bacterial and the colony forming units counts ranged from 4.5 × 10⁵ to 1.12 × 10⁶. The isolates were identified as Escherichia coli (37.5%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (3.57%), Staphylococcus aureus (14.20%), Salmonella sp. (5.36%), Klebsiella sp. (10.71%), Shigella sp. (19.64%) and Enterobacter sp. (8.93%) respectively. All the 56 isolates...

Salinity is a major environmental stress that limits crop production worldwide. In this study, we characterized plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) containing 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase and examined their effect on salinity stress tolerance in okra through the induction of ROS-scavenging enzyme activity. PGPR inoculated okra plants exhibited higher germination per...

The essential oil (EO) composition of ripe fruit of S. terebinthifolius Raddi was analyzed by GC-MS. The oil extraction yielded 6.54 ± 1.06% (w/w). Seventeen compounds were identified, accounting for 91.15% of the total oil, where monoterpenes constituted the main chemical class (85.81%), followed by sesquiterpenes (5.34%). The major monoterpene identified was δ-3-carene (30.37%), followed by l...

Biological beta-lactam antibiotic-inactivating activities were detected in bacteriuria and suppurating pleural fluids. Clinical specimens were sterilized with membrane filters and the amounts of ampicillin and/or cephalothin which were being inactivated by 1 ml of each filtrate were determined. In general, filtrates which originally yielded Klebsiella sp. tended to show activity against ampicil...

Six Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic, non-spore-forming, coccoid rod-shaped isolates were obtained from fruit powder (n=3), infant formula (n=2) and an infant formula production environment (n=1) and investigated in a polyphasic taxonomic study. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis combined with rpoB gene sequence analysis allocated the isolates to the family Enterobacteriaceae. Th...

The susceptibility of 4,929 unselected clinical isolates of bacteria to cefoxitin and cephalothin was determined by the single-disk method, using a computer-associated electronic zone analyzer to obtain, record, and process measurements of sizes of zones of inhibition. Both cefoxitin and cephalothin were effective against most gram-positive strains, including Staphylococcus aureus, S. epidermid...

Clinical strains of Enterobacter were isolated from Cumana's Central Hospital in Venezuela, and classified as E. cloacae (21), E. aerogenes (7), E. intermedium (1), E. sakazakii (1) and three unclassified. The strains showed high levels of resistance, especially to SXT (58.1%), CRO (48.8%), CAZ (46.6%), PIP (46.4%), CIP (45.2%) and ATM (43.3%). This is the first report for South America of blaV...

The biodegradability of the principal component of synthetic detergent products known as linear alkylbenzene sulphonate (LAS) has been contentious, hence the need to evaluate its primary biodegradation by indigenous microorganisms in wastewater ecosystem. The native microbial consortium of a wastewater ecosystem found to utilize detergent components were characterized using standard and convent...