The analysis of bacterial diversity in aquatic systems particularly in rivers, lakes, and streams can provide useful data on the effect of anthropogenic activities on such water bodies to humans and fishes. Idah River, the focal point of this study, is an offshoot of the two major Nigerian rivers characterized by observed human activities and pollution sources. Water samples were collected from four designated sites and assessed for their bacterial assemblages and structure, using PacBio Single-Molecule Real-Time (SMRT) sequencing technology. The full length of the 16S rRNA gene was sequenced, and Amplicon Sequence Variants were generated using the DADA2 workflow optimised for PacBio long-read amplicons in Rstudio. A total of 8751 high-quality reads obtained were taxonomically classified as 24 phyla, 42 classes, 84 orders, 125 families, 156 genera, and 106 species. Taxonomical composition revealed Proteobacteria as the most abundant phyla across all sample sites. At the genera level, Azospira (57.03%) was the most dominant ASV in Docking Point A, while Acinetobacter (66.67%) was the most abundant ASV in Docking Point B. In Idah Axis Confluence, hgcl clade (65.66%) was the most prevalent ASV, whereas Holophaga (42.86%) was the most common ASV in Idah Axis Midstream. Genera analysis also revealed that 12.9% of the total ASVs were discovered across all sample sites. Among these were pathogenic bacteria, reducers, and degraders of domestic and animal wastes. Observed results provide evidence that sampled sites of Idah River are contaminated, most likely through constant human activities and thus, could have an impact on resident fishes as well. This study, therefore, agrees with a previous report from the river, which used standard microbial procedures. However, next-generation se-

No abstract

Anti-malarial drug resistance is one of the biggest public health burdens confronting global malaria control programmes. The emergence of P. falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter and multi-drug resistance mutant genes had devastating effects on the therapeutic efficacy of chloroquine when it was the drug of choice for malaria treatment. The artemisinins have proven to be an excellent therapeutic alternative to fill the void in chemotherapeutic options left by resistance mechanisms. The sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase ortholog of P. falciparum (PfATPase-6) has been suggested as one of the targets of the artemisinins. Consequently, Pfatpase-6 gene polymorphisms are being investigated as markers of artemisinin resistance elsewhere. The present study assessed the molecular profile of the current prevalence of four P. falciparum candidate artemisinin resistance biomarkers L263E, E431K, A623E, and S769N in the Pfatpase-6 gene in 113 samples of P. falciparum isolates collected from Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria between 2017 and 2018. The frequency of occurrence of E431K mutation was 17% from collected samples. No A623E, L263E and S769N were detected. The result suggests that resistance to artemisinin has either not yet been selected in Nigeria or other genes mutations might be responsible for such, if at all