A comparative study on antimicrobial potency of amino glycoside antibiotics against skin infections

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the comparative antimicrobial potential of aminogycoside antibiotics against
skin infecting pathogens. Five different antibiotics of the class namely gentamicin, kanamycin, amikacin, streptomycin and
tobramycin were tested for their antimicrobial effectiveness against six severe dermatogens such as Staphylococcus aureus,
Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escerichia coli, Micrococcus luteus, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Candida albicans. The results of
the antimicrobial assay showed that among all the tested antibiotics streptomycin, kanamycin, gentamicin and amikacin reveled
highest antimicrobial activity against all the tested pathogens at equivalent antibiotic concentration. The zone of inhibition (IZD)
was 42.76 mm for Amikacin against staphylococcus aurues. The zone of inhibition against Escerichia coli was highest for
Streptomycin (IZD: 36.66 mm), whereas for Staphylococcus epidermidis the higher zone of inhibition was observed for
Kanamycin (IZD: 37.76 mm) than other tested amino glycosides. However, the antimicrobial activity of the antibiotics was much
poor on the tested fungi. Among all tested amino glycosides, only Kanamycin was found to exhibit reasonable antifungal activi ty
(IZD: 11.3 mm) than other antibiotics. In this study, we pobably for the first time, have reported the comparative antimicrobial
analysis of some selected aminoglycosides on the skin infecting pathogens, responsible for very severe human skin infections like
furuncles, staphylococcal scalded skin syndrome, impetigo, ecthyma, folliculitis, osteomyelitis, acne, cholecystitis, bacteremia,
candidiasis etc. Thus, the study may be helpful to provide some essential information regarding antimicrobial efficacy of
aminoglycoside class of antibiotics against severe human skin infecting pathogens.