Abstract:
A wide range of antibacterial compounds have been isolated from many sources
which include soils, bacteria and fungi. The antibacterial compounds produce from
bacteria that survive in the tree bark, however are less identified. Human nowadays
are facing a problem on the emergence of microbial drug resistant. This problem
needs a serious searching of more new antibacterial compounds in order to overcome
the pathogenic agents due to the lack number of antibacterial compounds. The aims of
this study are to isolate and identify bacteria from tree bark and to determine whether
the bacteria are producing antibacterial compounds. The study area was done around
the University Malaysia Terengganu at three locations, namely Coastal Area,
Kampung Gong Badak and Faculty of Science and Technology. Tree barks were
collected from three species of tree; Casuarina equisetifolia, Ficus americana and
Lawsonia inermis at the respective area. All bacterial samples isolated from the tree
species were characterized and identified using Gram staining, and several
biochemical tests. The bacterial isolates were then tested for antibiotic activity to
determine those producing antibacterial compounds. Test strains used were Klebsiella
sp., Salmonella sp., Bacillus sp., Streptococcus sp., Staphylococcus sp. and
Pseudomonas sp. From the test result, all bacterial isolates collected from tree bark
were not producing any inhibition zone. This could be due to the appearance of
external and internal factors of the tree bark that affect the growth of the bacteria
which thus, decreased the ability of certain bacteria to survive or to produce
antibacterial substance. Since no potentially bacteria are found, more research has to
be performed widely due to the difficulties of getting the desired bacteria from tree
bark.
