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Contamination of soil by antibiotics and heavy metals originating from hospital facilities has emerged as a major cause for the development of resistant microbes. We collected soil samples surrounding a hospital effluent and measured the resistance of bacterial isolates against multiple antibiotics and heavy metals. One strain BMCSI 3 was found to be sensitive to all tested antibiotics. However, it was resistant to many heavy metals and metalloids like cadmium, chromium, copper, mercury, arsenic, and others. This strain was motile and potentially spore-forming. Whole-genome shotgun assembly of BMCSI 3 produced 4.95 Mb genome with 4,638 protein-coding genes. The taxonomic and phylogenetic analysis revealed it, to be a Bordetella petrii strain. Multiple genomic islands carrying mobile genetic elements; coding for heavy metal resistant genes, response regulators or transcription factors, transporters, and multi-drug efflux pumps were identified from the genome. A comparative genomic analysis of BMCSI 3 with annotated genomes of other free-living B. petrii revealed the presence of multiple transposable elements and several genes involved in stress response and metabolism. This study provides insights into how genomic reorganization and plasticity results in evolution of heavy metals resistance by acquiring genes from its natural environment.

Background Arsenic, a ubiquitous toxic metalloid, is a threat to the survival of all living organisms. Bioaccumulation of arsenic interferes with the normal physiological pathway. To overcome arsenic toxicity, organisms have developed arsenite methyltransferase enzyme, which methylates inorganic arsenite to organic arsenic MMA (III) in the presence of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM). Bacteria-derived arsM might be horizontally transported to different domains of life as arsM or as3mt (animal ortholog). A systematic study on the functional diversity of arsenite methyltransferase from various sources will be used in arsenic bioremediation. Results Several arsenite methyltransferase protein sequences of bacteria, fungi, fishes, birds, and mammals were retrieved from the UniProt database. In silico physicochemical studies confirmed the acidic, hydrophilic, and thermostable nature of these enzymes. Interkingdom relationships were revealed by performing phylogenetic analysis. Homology modeling was performed by SWISS-MODEL, and that was validated through SAVES-v.6.0. QMEAN values ranged from − 0.93 to − 1.30, ERRAT score (83–96), PROCHECK (88–92%), and other parameters suggested models are statistically significant. MOTIF and PrankWeb discovered several functional motifs and active pockets within the proteins respectively. The STRING database showed protein–protein interaction networks. Conclusion All of our in silico studies confirmed the fact that arsenite methyltransferase is a cytosolic stable enzyme with conserved sequences over a wide range of organisms. Thus, because of its stable and ubiquitous nature, arsenite methyltransferase could be employed in arsenic bioremediation.

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Background: Due to the rapid rise of allergies, anti-allergy medications are commonly utilised to reduce inflammation; however, allergen-specific inhibitors may also be utilised. Objective: Our in silico study is aimed to find out a promising anti-allergic compound that can act against a wide range of allergens. Methods: The inhibitory efficacies of potential anti-allergic compounds were investigated by ADMET studies and were followed by high throughput molecular docking. Binding energy was calculated by AUTODOCK, which led to the identification of binding sites between the allergens and anti-allergic compounds. Each of the five anti-allergic compounds interacted with allergens at various levels. The docked poses showing significant binding energy were subjected to molecular docking simulation. Results: Marrubiin exhibits higher binding affinities to the catalytic pocket against allergens from chicken, European white birch plant, bacteria, fungus, and numerous food allergens. Conclusions: We propose Marrubiin, which appears to be a promising anti-allergic candidate and anti-inflammatory agent against a wide spectrum of allergens. The future directions of this research are to analyze the effects of anti-allergic mechanisms in vivo.