Background Acetaminophen (APAP) and ibuprofen (IB) are drugs commonly used to alleviate pain due to their anti‐inflammatory, anti‐pyretic, and analgesic effect. The aim of the present study is to unravel the molecular mechanisms underlying the antimicrobial potential of these two drugs against red complex pathogens, namely, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Treponema denticola, and Tannerella forsythia, by using in silico tools, since they are potentially associated with inflammatory conditions related to periodontal infections. Methods The STITCH v5.0 pipeline was primarily used for identifying drug‐protein interactions; VirulentPred and VICMPred were used for elucidating the virulence property and functional class of the proteins. The subcellular localization of virulent proteins was assessed using PSORTb v3.0 and the epitopes were identified using BepiPred v1.0 Linear Epitope Prediction tool. Results APAP and IB were found to interact with proteins involved in cellular process, metabolism, and virulence. The virulent proteins targeted by the drugs were located in the cytoplasm, which would further add to the effectiveness of the drugs to serve as antimicrobial agents. Finally, epitope prediction revealed multiple epitopes in the virulent proteins which can be specifically focused on. Conclusions APAP and IB were found to target vital proteins involved in the cellular process, metabolism, and virulence of red complex pathogens. An in‐depth knowledge on the interaction of these drugs and their antibacterial activity would add to the plethora of merits gained by these drugs in clinical settings. Further in vitro studies on a wide range of pathogens are warranted to substantiate the true interactions between the drugs and the protein repertoire of pathogens.

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Carbapenems are administered as the final drug of choice for treating complicated nosocomial infections caused by multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii strains. It is currently a worldwide issue that metallo-β-lactamases (MBLs) as carbapenem-hydrolyzing enzymes are one of the major drug resistance mechanisms. This investigation is thus aimed to assess the prevalence and characterize the MBL-producing strains of A. baumannii both by phenotypic assays and by genotypic characterization. A total of 73 isolates of A. baumannii were phenotypically and genotypically characterized from patients (N = 1,000) with severe urinary tract infection. Tested strains were subjected to double disc synergy testing (DDST) by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method with imipenem (IMP) and IMP/EDTA combination discs. Plasmid DNA was molecularly screened for MBL-encoding bla IMP , bla VIM , bla GIM , and bla NDM genes by PCR for the genetic relatedness of the MBL genes with carbapenem resistance. Carbapenem resistance profile showed 100%, 45%, and 49% non-susceptibility against imipenem, doripenem, and meropenem, respectively. Altogether 42.46% (n = 31) of the isolates showed MBL production upon double disc phenotypic test with IMP and IMP/EDTA discs. The bla VIM and bla GIM were detected in 34.24% (n = 25) and 16.43% (n = 12) of the isolates, respectively, while the co-occurrence of bla VIM and bla GIM was 2.73% among the isolates. DDST-positive isolates showed 21.19% and 9.58% strains positive for bla VIM and bla GIM , respectively, whereas 1.36% of the strains for both genes. None of the strains yielded bla IMP and bla NDM genes. The findings of this study showed prevalence of carbapenem resistance among A. baumannii from urine samples and the frequency of bla VIM and bla GIM.