Determination of antimicrobial activity by defence fluid of Globitermes Sulphureus on selected soil microbes

Soil microbes are widely distributed in surrounding termite mounds, and subterranean termites need to minimize this potential pathogenic microorganism to maintain colony health. However, the information about antagonistic relationship between termites and microbes infection is limited and there are no previous study done on the defence fluid of Globitermes sulphureus Haviland. Therefore, this will be the first study about antimicrobial activity of defence fluid secreted by Globitermes sulphureus Haviland against the surrounding soil microbes. Antimicrobial properties of defence fluid were revealed by disk diffusion method and compare with gentamicin. The solvent used to extract the properties of defence fluid was High Performance Liquid Chromatography grade of methanol. The concentration of defence fluid solvent used was 0.5mg/ml, 1.0mg/ml, 5.Omg/ml and 10.0mg/ml to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration. Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli and isolated mound soil bacteria, B001 and B002 were used as tested microorganism. The clear zone result showed that defence fluid crude extract had highest inhibitory effect against Bacillus subtilis followed by Escherichia coli, then Bacteria B002. The minimum inhibitory concentration of crude extract against Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli was 0.5mg/ml while against B002 was 5.0mg/ml. At minimum inhibitory concentration, Bacillus subtilis shows 8.33±0.57mm, Escherichia coli show 6.67±0.57mm and B002 show 7.67±0.57mm diameter of inhibition zone. However, there was no inhibition zone at all crude extract concentration to against B001 because B001 had symbiosis relationship in mound soil. In statistical analysis, it concludes that there was no significance difference between antimicrobial activity of G. sulphureus crude extract and gentamicin disks. This study show that defence fluid had a great potential as natural antimicrobial agent as it have same antimicrobial effectiveness to gentamicin disk.