Protective effects of zinc ions towards <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i> bacteria exposed with antibiotics

Abstract

Objective. The work was performed with the purpose to study susceptibility of S. aureus bacteria to the action of the standard spectrum of antibiotics in presence of zinc ions used on the disks with antibiotics or on the lawn of the bacterial culture preliminarily to antibiotics treatment.Materials and methods. Suspensions of S. aureus bacteria which contained 108 CFU/ ml were sown by the lawns into the standard Petri dishes coated with the supplemented Nutrient Agar. 30 min later the standard disks with antibiotics were passed on the surface of the lawn, and zinc sulfate was added by the drops of the volume of 5 μl on the surface of the disk. Then the dishes with bacterial cultures were incubated for 24 hrs at 37°C followed by measuring diameter of the area of culture growth inhibition. In some tests preliminarily to the disks with antibiotics passing the places of following disks application were treated with the zinc sulfate for 10 min at the room temperature.Results and discussion. In presence of 1.0 μg/ml of zinc ions on the disk with antibiotics protective action of the metal towards the bacteria was registered at 2.9 per cent observations. In presence of one, four or eight zinc ions per one molecule of antibiotic protective action was registered at 1.4-5.7 per cent observations. Treatment with zinc ions of the surfaces of lawns followed by the disks installation resulted in 27.3-45.5 per cent observations of reducing diameter of the area of bacterial growth inhibition.Conclusion. The treatment of the surface of the lawn of S. aureus bacteria with zinc ions cause protection of the bacteria from the following inhibitory antibiotics action.

Keywords

• s. aureus
• antibiotics
• protection
• zinc ions