Antibiotic Susceptibility of Potentially Probiotic Vaginal Lactobacilli

LAPTg and MRS agars are suitable media to study antimicrobial susceptibility of lactobacilli. However, the NCCLS procedure needs to be standardized for this genus. The MICs have shown that all Lactobacillus strains grew at concentrations above 10 microg/mL of chloramphenicol, aztreonam, norfloxacin, ciprofloxacin, ceftazidime, ceftriaxone, streptomycin and kanamycin. Four lactobacilli were sensitive to 1 microg/mL vancomycin and all of them were resistant to 1000 microg/mL of metronidazole. Sensitivity to other antibiotics depended on each particular strain. Conclusions. The NCCLS method needs to be standardized in an appropriate medium to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility of Lactobacillus. Vaginal probiotic lactobacilli do not display uniform susceptibility to antibiotics. Resistance to high concentrations of metronidazole suggests that lactobacilli could be simultaneously used with a bacterial vaginosis treatment to restore the vaginal normal flora.