Isolation and characterization of antimicrobial agent producing microbes and generation of metagenomic libraries from diverse forest soils in Puerto Rico

The main goal of our research was the isolation and characterization of Antimicrobial Agent Producing Microbes (AAPM) and the generation of soil metagenomic libraries for the isolation of antimicrobial agent encoding genes. Soil samples were obtained from three forests in Puerto Rico. We isolated a total of 185 AAPM from soil samples by using serial dilutions and the crowded plate technique forty of the AAPM showed antagonistic capabilities toward enteric and non-enteric opportunistic bacteria used as targets which included Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus epidermidis. The capability of antimicrobial production of the isolated microbes was determined by using a modified version of the Kirby Bauer susceptibility test, the radial inhibition, and the streak technique, among others. The top ten antagonists were chosen for further molecular, microbiological and biochemical characterization. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...