Haeng-Hoon Kim

Identification and Antibiotic Susceptibility Test of Bacteria from In Vitro Cultures of Pinellia ternata and Tea Plant

Contamination of bacterial infection is one of serious problems in in vitro culture system of root crops. From the contaminated tubes over 140 of petiole cultures of Pinellia ternata, a medicinal plant, 4 genera 8species 48 strains of bacteria, including Aeromonas and Pseudomonas, were isolated and identified and another 8 strains were not fully identified. Most of them were motile Gram positive bacteria as in common in early stage of in vitro cultures. Six strains of bacteria, 5 of Gram negative, including Enterobacter, and 1 of Gram positive, were identified from the embryonic axes cultures of tea plant. From the susceptibility test to pre-screened 5 antibiotics, all of the bacteria except for 2 species of Pseudomonas were susceptible to cefotaxime 60∼100mg/L. While 60mg/L erythromycin only was effective to Pseudomonas. Combination of erythromycin 20mg/L and cefotaxime 60mg/L totally suppressed the growth of all bacterial strains tested. Susceptibility test of bacteria from tea embryonic axes cultures showed similar results. Combination of erythromycin 35mg/L and cefotaxime 60mg/L was effective to 15 bacterial strains and partially effective to 1 unidentified.