Find The Best Treatment for Microbial Infections with Antibiotic Sensitivity Discs

 You must have taken antibiotics once in your life.

Do you ever think about how antibiotics work?

How can you predict whether an antibiotic will be effective or not in treating a bacterial infection?

Yes, but can’t find the answer. Don’t worry! Because in this article we will discuss this question.

Before answering these, let's first define antibiotics.

An antibiotic is a compound produced by a microbial species to kill or inhibit the growth of other bacterial species when given in a specified concentration.

Now, the Action Mechanism of Antibiotics

After administration, antibiotics can kill or inhibit bacteria by destroying their cell walls, inhibiting cell wall synthesis, producing toxins, disturbing the metabolic pathway, and inhibiting replication, transcription, and translation of microbes.

So now the question is, how can you predict whether an antibiotic will be effective or not in treating a bacterial infection?

The answer is: antibiotic sensitivity test.

Antibiotic Sensitivity Test

The antibiotic sensitivity test is performed to measure the susceptibility of a bacteria against the tested antibiotic. It is typically performed in the clinical industry and involves the use of culture methods that expose bacteria to antibiotics. Culture methods frequently involve measuring the diameter of areas without bacterial growth, known as the zone of inhibition, on agar culture plates that have been evenly inoculated with the test bacteria. The size of the zone of inhibition can be used to estimate the minimum inhibitory concentration, which is the lowest concentration of the antibiotic that stops bacterial growth.

This method can be qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative, in which a result indicates whether resistance exists or not; or quantitative, in which a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) is used to describe the concentration of antibiotic to which a bacterium is sensitive.

The sensitivity of bacteria to antibiotics is determined by a disc diffusion test. In this method, the test bacteria are inoculated on Muller Hinton agar plates, and then the antibiotic-impregnated discs are placed on these plates. After incubation, a clear ring or zone of inhibition is visible around the antibiotic disc if the bacteria are susceptible. By measuring and comparing the diameter of this zone of inhibition, bacteria are classified as sensitive, intermediate, or resistant to an antibiotic.

 Disc diffusion is the simplest and cheapest method for testing antibiotic susceptibility, and it is easily adapted to testing newly available antibiotics or formulations. Nowadays, antimicrobial resistance is a worldwide problem. To find alternative antibiotics, the disc diffusion method is preferable. In the disc diffusion method, you can check multiple antibiotics at once.

Antibiotic Disc

Nowadays, a variety of antibiotics are available. Each type of antibiotic is only effective against a specific type or specie of bacteria. An antibiotic sensitivity disc can assist a doctor in determining which antibiotic will be most effective in treating your infection.

Antibiotic-impregnated disc, when placed on agar inoculated with the test bacterium, the antibiotic diffuses radially outward through the agar medium, producing an antibiotic concentration gradient. A clear zone or ring is formed around an antibiotic disc after incubation if the test bacterium is susceptible to the antibiotic.

At Titan Biotech, we offer antibiotic sensitivity discs like Amikacin, Azithromycin, Cephalothin, Do-deca discs, and many more as per your experimental needs in three different packaging: blister pack, cartridge, and vial.