Comparative Study of Bacteriocin and Antibiotics Employed to Treat Upper Respiratory Tract Infections in Local Population of District Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan

Anti-biotic resistance is aggravated worldwide. Frequently acquired infections such as respiratory infections caused by bacteria are usually found resistant. The present study was intended to isolate antibiotic resistant bacteria responsible for upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) and to reveal the comparative efficacy of bacteriocin with generally used antibiotics. Three bacterial strains (Moraxella catarrhalis, Neisseria meningitidis and Alcaligenes sargodhrensis) were identified and isolated from throat swabs of 391 patients of URTI inhabiting the District Sargodha. Bacteriocin was attained from L. acidophilus following standard available procedures. Molecular characterization of bacteriocin was also executed using SDS-PAGE. To proceed the comparative study of bacteriocin and commercially available antibiotics, varied concentrations of antibiotics were used against purified bacteriocin. The outcomes of this research work showed that normal micro flora of throat is supporting the pathogenic bacterial strains. Alcaligenes sargodhrensis was found to be novel strain in this study based on results of ribotyping and Phylogenetic relationship with Alcaligenes family. All strains (Moraxella catarrhalis, Neisseria meningitidis and Alcaligenes sargodhrensis) were found resilient to antibiotics (moxifloxacin, ciprofloxacin, levofloxicin, amoxicillin and erythromycin) at more and less degree. Activity of bacteriocin was found analogous with antibiotics to control the developing antibiotics resistance among bacterial strains. The present study proposes bacteriocin as innocuous conjugate of antibiotics as it not only has anti-bacterial activity comparable with antibiotic drugs but also it strengthens the immune system against bacterial outbreak.