<p class="abstract"><strong><span lang="EN-US">Background:</span></strong><span lang="EN-US"> Cosmetics are external preparations normally applied to human body parts mainly for beautifying, cleansing and protecting. These products are basically non-sterile but must be completely free of high-virulence microbial pathogens. Production of stable cosmetics products require integrated quality management system which consists of quality raw material, proper product formulation, hygienic design of production facilities, good production hygiene process, packaging containers and a validated preservative system. Inadequately preserved products can provide conducive environments for microorganisms especially in the tropical region. The objective of this study is to assess the microbial quality of some selected brands of cosmetics produced in the country and sold within the commercial city of Aba, Abia state of Nigeria thus to note the health hazards consumers are exposed to.</span></p><p class="abstract"><strong><span lang="EN-US">Methods:</span></strong>Twenty brands of commercially available Cosmetic products manufactured in Nigeria were evaluated for their microbial quality using standard procedures.</p><p class="abstract"><strong><span lang="EN-US">Results:</span></strong><span lang="EN-US"> There was no viable bacterial growth in 40% of the samples tested and no yeast growth in 65% of the samples tested. 35% of the products indicated &lt; 300 CFU /g of samples tested. The predominant bacterial isolates were <em>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</em> and S<em>taphylococci aureus</em>. Preservative efficacy tests carried out on the products using <em>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</em> ATCC 9027 showed only 30% of the products tested were adequately preserved.</span></p><p class="abstract"><strong><span lang="EN-US">Conclusions:</span></strong>The poor microbiological quality of the preparations investigated can be attributed to either the formulation of these brands or environmental conditions during the manufacturing process. It is hoped that the training of the personnel that handle these processes will improve cosmetic products quality in Nigeria.</p>

A study of the bioremediation of diverse levels of simulated contamination of waste engine oil (WEO) in soil using natural attenuation, bioaugmentation, mycoremediation and phytoremediation was carried out. This required a preliminary study of the microbiological and physico-chemical quality of waste engine oil contaminated soils from as it were, a "naturally" contaminated site, as a check that the characteristics of the "natural" and simulated samples match. Thus, WEO contaminated soil samples were randomly collected with controls and pooled together respectively from Owerri, Imo State, in the Eastern part of Nigeria and Kumasi in the Ashanti region of Ghana. The most occurring microorganism isolated from all the samples is Bacillus sp. The mean logarithm (mlog) of the total heterotrophic bacterial counts (THBC), total heterotrophic fungal counts (THFC), hydrocarbon utilizing bacterial count (HUBC) and hydrocarbon utilizing fungal counts (HUFC) for the WEO contaminated samples from Kumasi and Owerri were 3.85±0.01 and 3.89±0.01; 3.79±0.07 and 3.98±0.01; 4.37±0.01 and 4.35±0.01 and 4.12±0.02 and 4.22±0.01 respectively. Some Physicochemical parameters such as pH, total hydrocarbon, total organic carbon, phosphate, nitrate and sulphate content; Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and heavy metals content of the respective samples were analyzed.

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Aims:The aim of this study was to investigate the use of locally sourced snail gut enzyme from African giant snail (Achatina achatina) for yeast protoplasts production. Place and Duration of Study: Fresh undiluted palm wine was commercially acquired from Umuoke, Obowo in Imo State while African giant snails (A. achatina) were bought from Umuahia main market, Abia State, Nigeria. The study was carried out from June to september, 2013. Methodology: The snails were starved for 7 days so as to concentrate their gut juice, carefully aspirated using sterile needles and syringes after unshelling the snails. All the extracts from twelve snails were pooled together and centrifuged at 1,500rpm for 20 minutes to remove larger particulates; the supernatant was collected dissolved in 0.1M acetate buffer (pH 5.5). Yeast cells (Saccharomyces cerevisae) were grown in potato dextrose broth and harvested at late exponential Short Communication 7/mL yeast protoplast. The best supporting osmotic stabilizer during cell wall regeneration was observed with 0.5M sucrose. Conclusion:This experiment therefore suggests a rapid, inexpensive and efficient procedure for yeast protoplasts production.