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The composition of vagina lactic acid bacteria (LAB) differs within the different ethnic group. This study is aimed at determining the prevalence of LAB with their antimicrobial properties in Nigerian women's vagina during different stages of the menstrual cycle. Microorganisms were isolated from vaginal swabs of ten Nigerian women during different stages of the menstrual cycle and identified by partial sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. The antimicrobial properties of the LAB were tested against the multidrug-resistant uropathogens. The prevalence of LAB was higher during ovulation period while during menstruation period, it declined. Twenty-five LAB isolates were identified as three species, namely: Lactobacillus plantarum (15), Lactobacillus fermentum (9), Lactobacillus brevis (1) and one acetic acid bacteria – Acetobacter pasteurianus. The LAB had antimicrobial activities against the three uropathogens with zones of inhibition from 8 to 22 mm. The presence of LAB inhibits the growth of Staphylococcus sp. GF01 also in the co-culture. High LAB counts were found during ovulation period with L. plantarum as a dominant species while during menstruation, there was a decrease in the LAB counts. The isolated LAB has antimicrobial properties against the urogenital pathogens tested thus exhibiting their potential protective role against uropathogens.

Staphylococci are normally harmless commensals occurring on the skin, mucous membrane and the general environment. However, they are increasingly implicated in different infectious states. Of particular interest is the advent of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) with its attendance resistance to beta lactam antibiotics. Several infectious states are now emerging with staphylococci being implicated in the infections, e.g. S. saprophyticus has been implicated in urogenital infection. It would be interesting to document the prevalence of staphylococci in different infectious state. The identification of staphylococci is supposed to be a straightforward procedure, but an alarming misidentification rate is emerging in low resource laboratories, especially in places where identification is solely by growth and fermentation on mannitol salt agar (MSA). Finally, empirical treatment of any staphylococci infection will depend on local suspectibility pattern of the strains as the susceptibilities vary from environment to environment. This chapter summarizes the current knowledge regarding the prevalence, diagnosis and local susceptibility of staphylococci in different parts of the world.

The upsurge of resistance in classes of antibiotics in varied bacterial species has increased the search for alternatives to antibiotics in bacterial infections. However, one alternative is the beneficial bacteria in foods, environment and gut. Probiotics is now being embraced as an alternative strategy to combat antibiotic resistant pathogens. A newer application is gut microbiota in its healthy state combating pathogenic and antibiotic resistant microbes. There have been numerous applications of beneficial bacteria against different infectious agents. This article describes the concept of beneficial microbes as antimicrobial agents with current applications as antimicrobial agents, various applications in the human gut with future directions.

We assessed the subsistence-related variation of the human gut microbiome at a fine resolution for two of the main dimensions of microbiome variation, age and geography. For this, we investigated the fecal microbiome and metabolome in rural Bassa and urbanized individuals from Nigeria, including infants, and compared data with worldwide populations practicing varying subsistence. Our data highlight specific microbiome traits that are progressively lost with urbanization, such as the dominance of pristine fiber degraders and the low inter-individual variation. For the Bassa, this last feature is the result of their subsistence-related practices favoring microbial dispersal, such as their extensive environmental contact and the usage of untreated waters from the Usuma River. The high degree of microbial dispersal observed in the Bassa meta-community nullifies the differences between infant and adult intestinal ecosystems, suggesting that the infant-type microbiome in Western populations could be the result of microbiome-associated neotenic traits favored by urbanization. Ayeni et al. characterize the fecal microbiome and metabolome of rural Bassa and urban individuals from Nigeria, including infants. Their findings stress the loss of ancient signatures along with urbanization and support distinct trajectories of development of the intestinal ecosystem in early life, depending on human subsistence.