Selçuk Üniversitesi Fen Fakültesi Fen Dergisi

Öz

In leather
industry soaking process is applied to salted hides and skins in order to
rehydrate, to soften, to remove the salt, blood, dung, dirt and microorganisms.
The soaking process is a favorable environment for bacterial growth, and during
this process significant damage occurs on the hides and skins.  It is known
that soaked hides/skins contain Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, which
can adversely affect hide/skin quality even though they are treated with
antimicrobial agents. Insufficient and random use of antimicrobial agents is
inadequate in controlling the numbers of these bacteria, and excessive use of
them also leads to the emergence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria. The
choice of appropriate antimicrobial agent is very important in preventing
damage caused by bacteria found on the hides. Therefore, application of
methylisothiazolinone-containing antimicrobial agent used in the leather
industry against reference bacterial strains and investigation of the minimum
inhibitor concentration will provide important information on the effectiveness
of this antimicrobial agent on bacteria that may be harmful to hides in leather
processing. In the present study, the eighteen different concentration
of antimicrobial agent containing methylisothiazolinone
were applied against Gram-negative (Pseudomonas
aeruginosa ATCC27853, Escherichia
coli ATCC25922) and Gram-positive (Staphylococcus
epidermidis ATCC12228, Staphylococcus
aureus ATCC29213, Micrococcus luteus ATCC9341,
Enterococcus faecalis ATCC29212, Bacillus cereus ATCC11778, Bacillus subtilis ATCC6633) reference
strains and their mixed culture. The minimum inhibitor concentrations were
determined using agar dilution method. The minimum inhibitor concentrations of
antimicrobial agent were found as 5000 µg/ml for Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC27853, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC29213, Micrococcus luteus ATCC9341, mixed culture of test bacteria; 1250
µg/ml for Escherichia coli ATCC25922;
156 µg/ml for Bacillus cereus ATCC11778;
39 µg/ml for Staphylococcus epidermidis ATCC12228
and Enterococcus faecalis ATCC29212;
and 9.76 µg/ml for Bacillus subtilis ATCC6633.
As a result, it was determined that the tested antimicrobial agent inhibited
the growth of eight different reference strains and their mixed culture, and
that spectrum of action was broad.