ISOLATION, PURIFICATION AND DETECTION OF ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF BETA-LACTAM ANTIBIOTICS FROM FEW FUNGAL STRAINS

An Antibiotic is a chemical substance derivable from a mold or bacterium that can kill microorganisms and cure infections. They exhibit a wide spectrum of activity against an array of bacteria. The present study describes the various methods for the isolation of β-lactam antibiotic producing fungi as well as the processes for the production of penicillin and cephalosporin using Penicillium chrysogenum and Cephalosporium acremonium respectively. Different methods were described for the purification of antibiotics and their antimicrobial activity against test microorganisms i.e Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Bacillus cereus followed by thin layer chromatography for the identification of the purified compound. The crude and purified antibiotics exhibited antimicrobial activity against the test organisms. The Rf values obtained for crude and purified penicillin were 0.71 &0.75 and cephalosporin were 0.83 and 0.98 respectively, which were close to their standard values 0.73 (pencillin) and 0.9 (cephalosporin).