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Vaccines are major contributors to the cost-effective interventions in major infectious diseases in the global public health space [...]

Designing a vaccine against a pathogen has been the toughest challenge to fight against any infectious diseases. To overcome this problem, use of artificial neural network with immuno-informatics is emerging as a front runner solution. For a successful designing of a potent vaccine, prediction of T-cell/B-cell epitopes, antigen processing and presentation analysis, antigenic potential analysis of epitopes, usages of linkers, population coverage, codon optimization, allergenicity assessment, toxicity prediction of construct, and finally protein-peptide docking for stability of vaccine are important steps. To achieve this, several bioinformatics software, tools and online web servers have been developed for each application, which have their own advantages and limitations. Scientists must evaluate these parameters and should take the decision to apply more suitable and precise servers for each analysis and prediction based on their accuracy, suitability, and robustness.

Multidrug resistance is one of the worldwide public health concerns. Water represents the most suitable environment, for the exchange of antibiotic resistance genes among pathogenic to non-pathogenic bacteria. Therefore, we aimed to screen the presence of blaNDM-1, blaTEM, blaSHV, blaCTX-M and mcr1–5 genes among water samples from different locations of Lower Himachal Pradesh. We examined the genotypic incidences of blaNDM-1, blaTEM, blaSHV, blaCTXM and mcr1–5 by polymerase chain reaction. Survivability assay, fitness cost assay and biofilm assay were performed for phenotypic characterization. The presence of blaNDM-1 and its related variants were analysed and confirmed by sequencing-based approaches. A total of 73 bacterial strains were identified on M-lauryl sulphate agar medium. Out of 73 colistin-resistant isolates, 34 were E. coli and 39 were K. pneumoniae. Out of 34 samples, 2 (5.8%), 2 (5.8%), 5 (14.7%), 5 (14.7%) and 4 (11.76%) E. coli were blaTEM, blaSHV,blaCTXM-1, blaCTXM-2 and blaCTXM-15 positive, respectively. Among 39 K. pneumoniae, 15 (38.4%), 6 (15.3%), 10 (25.6%), 9 (23.07%) and 10 (25.6%) were blaTEM, blaSHV, blaCTXM-1, blaCTXM-2 and blaCTXM-15 positive, respectively. Interestingly, we observed one E. coli (HG4) isolate with both blaNDM-1 and mcr-1 gene. Further analysis showed HG4 isolate has lesser survivability on the cotton swab, long lag phase and less biofilm production compared to colistin-sensitive isolates. Detection of E. coli with blaNDM-1 and mcr-1 in this geographical region is an alarming signal for tourists, community, health workers and policymakers. Hence, it is utmost important to take appropriate measures to control the dissemination of antibiotic resistance gene in such pristine locations.