DNA fingerprinting of Bacillus cereus from diverse sources by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis

Bacillus cereus is an opportunistic pathogen causing food poisoning manifested by diarrhoeal or emetic syndrome. It is closely related to animal and human pathogens Bacillus anthracis and the insect pathogen Bacillus thuringiensis. In the present study, antibiotic resistance, heavy metal tolerance & molecular typing of Bacillus cereus from diverse sources such as soil, sewage water, air, fresh water, sea water and milk were studied. Bacillus cereus resistant to Penicillin (10 units/ml) and Amoxycillin (10 µg/ml); sensitive to Cobalt and Mercury even at 1 mM concentration were determined. All the isolate had plasmid ranging in number from 3-5 and their molecular weight ranged from 3.0 kb-2.0 kb. Plasmid DNA band specific to 6,557 bp has been found in Bacillus cereus isolated from sewage water, air, fresh water, sea water and milk.