Sadik Dincer

By Sadik Dincer and Esra Sunduz Yigittekin

The recent statistics show that the world's population is rapidly increasing. This increase negatively affects the water resources and it increases the water demand progressively. Along with the increase in the world's population, the insensible use of water resources, pollution, and drought lead to the increasing reduction of water resources. Due to these factors, all countries, primarily developed countries, have started looking for new water resources. This search has been extended to extraterrestrial water. However, the existing technology and opportunities direct countries toward the purification of wastewater rather than searching for new water resources. For the reasons outlined above, purification and recycling of wastewater become important. In addition to the natural resistance of microorganisms against antibiotics, a resistance also arises because of the unconscious and overuse of antibiotics. This resistance spreads through wastewater progressively. Antibiotic resistance shows an increase according to the scientific data. In order to prevent the resistance, it is of capital importance to treat the wastewater in which the domestic pollution burden is high. In this study, the role of domestic wastewater in the occurrence and spread of antibiotic resistance will be revealed.

Part of the book: Biological Wastewater Treatment and Resource Recovery

By Sadık Dincer, Fatima Masume Uslu and Anil Delik

Biofilms can be found on several living and nonliving surfaces, which are formed by a group of microorganisms, complex assembly of proteins, polysaccharides, and DNAs in an extracellular polymeric matrix. By forming a biofilm, bacteria protect themselves from host defense, disinfectants, and antibiotics. Bacteria inside biofilm are much more resistant to antimicrobial agents than planktonic forms since bacteria that are unresisting to antimicrobial agents in any way can turn resistant after forming a biofilm. Low penetration of antibiotics into the biofilm, slow reproduction, and the existence of adaptive stress response constitute the multiphased defense of the bacterium. This antibiotic resistance, which is provided by biofilm, makes the treatments, which use effective antibiotic doses on the bacterium in planktonic shape, difficult. Biofilm formation potential of bacteria appears as an important virulence factor in ensuring the colonization on the living tissues or medical devices and makes the treatment difficult. The aim of this chapter is to overview the current knowledge of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms in biofilms.

Part of the book: Bacterial Biofilms

By Sadık Dincer, Hatice Aysun Mercimek Takci and Melis Sumengen Ozdenefe

Nonribosomal peptides (NRPs) are a type of secondary metabolite with a wide range of pharmacological and biological activities including cytostatics, immunosuppressants or anticancer agents, antibiotics, pigments, siderophores, toxins. NRPs, unlike other proteins, are synthesized on huge nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) enzyme complexes that are not dependent on ribosomal machinery. Bacteria and fungi are the most common NRPs producers. Furthermore, the presence of these peptides has been confirmed in marine microbes. Nowadays, many of these peptides are used in the treatments of inflammatory, cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and infectious disease for the development of new therapeutic agents. The structure, function, and synthesis of NRPs, as well as producer microorganisms and their several application areas, are covered in this chapter.

Part of the book: Molecular Cloning