The Effectiveness of Condoms to Protect Against Bacterial Infections Erica Salzano Department of Biology, York College Introduction Providencia stuartii, a member of the Enterobacteraceae family, is a common cause of urinary tract infections, both nosocomial and community-acquired (Poirel 2008). Condoms provide a dual purpose to prevent pregnancies and protect against infection. The ability of condoms to protect against P. stuartii induced UTI’s have not been previously studied. Some condoms contain spermicide to help reduce risk of unwanted pregnancies. The detergent based lubricant that many condoms contain to further enhance pregnancy prevention also have anti- microbial effects (Zairi 2009). For individuals that have a latex allergy, there are non-latex options like lambskin condoms. There are no major studies on the microbial carriage rate in the spermicide or lubricant used for condoms. Materials and Methods Discussion Condoms are not one hundred percent effective in preventing bacterial infections due to tearing, extreme stretching, or slippage (Warner et al. 2008). After twenty-four hours incubating at body temperature, all of the sample condoms were stretched to a much larger size, which could have contributed to the higher bacterial transmittance. Future Studies Identify the other prominent bacteria that appear to grow in lubricant. Further dilute the plated concentrations for the body temperature portion of the experiment, or less incubation time Literature Cited Poirel, L., Bruderer, T., Frei, R., Bernabeu, S., Graber, P., and Nordmann, P Multidrug-resistant Providencia stuartii expressing extended-spectrum b-lactamase PER-1, originating in Kosovo. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. 61: Zairi, A., Tangy, F., Bouassida, K., and Hani, K Dermaseptins and magainins: antimicrobial peptides from frogs’ skin- new sources for a promising spermicides microbicides. Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology 2009:1-8. Warner L. et al., Problems with condom use among patients attending sexually transmitted disease clinics: prevalence, predictors, and relation to incident gonorrhea and chlamydia. American Journal of Epidemiology 167: Acknowledgments Thanks to Dr. Mathur and Dr. Hagerty for all of their assistance with this research. Also thanks to Corinne Cusick and Rob Harvey for their formatting advice, and to James Bergenti for his support and lab help. Objectives Evaluate the efficacy of four types of condoms as barriers of transmission of Providencia stuartii. 1.Non-lubricated 2.Lubricated 3.Spermicidal 4.Lambskin Colony Variation Growth on Agar Plates Colony Indentification Morphological Description Microscopic Image 1 Round, tan, dull, small colonies 2 Larger, irregular shape, filamentous colonies 3 Small, round, yellow, shiny colonies 4 Small, bright yellow, circular, raised colonies Microbial Morphology Colony Description Streak Plates Gram Stains (photograph) Gram negative rods ~ 1 um Gram negative rods ~ 2 um Gram negative rods ~ 1um Gram negative rods ~ um Condom TypeColony IdentificationAverage Cell/mL Non-Lubricant1 Lubricant SpermicideN/A Lambskin mL Nutrient broth (A) 50 mL P. stuartii culture (B) Condom suspended in broth Colonies Per Condom at Room Temperature Table 2: The average cell per mL was calculated for each individual colony type found outside corresponding condom type. Spermicide condom calculations are not available due to full lawn growth. Table 1: Four different types of bacteria growth was seen. Bacteria types were morphologically described, stained, and viewed under the microscope. Type 1 is Providencia stuartii. Types 2,3, and 4 are unknowns. Results Methods Part I: Experimental Design - All conditions were done in duplicate Methods Part II Quantitative Analysis Plate samples A and B for standard plate count Data Analysis