Co-Existence of Antibiotic and Heavy Metal Resistance by Bacteria from Wound Infection

  With an intention to screen for bacterial isolates from wound infection exhibiting resistance to antibiotics, we also checked for the resistance to heavy metals, since both may be plasmid borne. Several bacteria have naturally developed tolerance to a wide range of antibiotics and toxic heavy metals. Some bacteria have also evolved mechanisms to detoxify heavy metals. Tolerance of zinc and copper by these bacteria were studied and it was found that gram positive bacteria were more resistant than gram negative bacteria. We could determine the common pattern of resistance of the isolates to both antibiotics and metals. Key words: antibiotics; heavy metals; copper; zinc; metal tolerance