Bacterial Interference in Human and Canine Resident Cutaneous Microflora

Abstract

This study represented an attempt to learn more about the phenomenon of cooperative bacterial interference. The accomplishments of this work are the following: 1. Bacteria from the various regions of the skin of man and dog were isolated and identified. 2. The following assays were developed to test bacterial interference: a. Modified Crowe technique b. Spot technique 1. Nutritional spot technique 2. Combined spot technique c. Membrane filter technique 1. Overlay membrane filter technique 2. Double spot membrane filter technique d. Concentrated Broth technique 1. Plate scrapping technique Data has been obtained from the above assays which support the hypothesis that the members of the resident canine cutaneous microflora do cooperate in preventing skin infection. The prevention is implicated, by this study, as being the result of cooperative antibioticproduction by the cutaneous microflora. The fact that cooperation could not be demonstrated using the human microflora is probably a function of the assays used rather than the phenomenon of cooperative bacterial interference. The only real way to measure cooperative bacterial interference is to quantitate the mg of antibiotic produced by combined cultures of various test strains.