Of all the fabulous bacteria that I had, there were three strains that were worthy of testing.  Coincidentally, all three were grown on R2A – a reason for which may be that there were fewer resources in this substrate.  The extracts were gathered on Thursday, October 25, by collecting the organic layer of our previously suspended colony plates.  I extracted three different ‘antibiotics’ from my three different strains, and prepared them to be dried.  On October 30, the extracts (which were not completely dried yet) were prepared to be tested against different bacteria strains.  They were suspended in methanol, and this solution was used to create antibiotic plates that were dropped onto the different tester bacteria plates.  I chose to test against 4 strains – 3, 4, 6, and 7 -, as these strains presented two GM(+) and two GM(-) bacteria strains.  On November 1, the results were observed, and of my three extracts I had antibiotic activity against both GM(+) and GM(-) bacteria.  Strain 1A – a GM(-) bacillus – produced antibiotics that inhibited growth on bacteria strain 3 – a GM(-) bacteria.  Strain 2B – another GM(-) bacillus – produced antibiotics that inhibited bacteria strain 7 – a GM(-) bacteria.  Strain 3A – a GM(-) rod-shaped bacteria – produced antibiotics that inhibited bacteria strain 4 – a GM(+) bacteria.

I was very happy to see that I had AB production from all three of my strains.  I was interested that the two bacilli strains produced AB’s that inhibited the GM(-) testers while the rod-shaped strains produced AB’s that inhibited the GM(+) tester strain (strain 4).  I believe that these strains could be further observed to be potential drugs against bacteria, as they target a wide range of GM(+) and GM(-) bacteria.