Tuberculosis, a life threatening disease caused by different strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is creating an alarming condition due to the
emergence of increasing multi drug resistance (MDR) trait. In this study, in silico approach was used for the identification of a conserved
novel virulent factor in Mycobacterium tuberculosis EAI5 (Accession no.CP006578) which can also act as potential therapeutic target.
Systematic comparative search of genes that are common to strain EAI5 and other human pathogenic strains of M. tuberculosis enlisted 408
genes. These were absent in the non-pathogenic Mycobacterium smegmatis MC2155 and in the human genome. Among those genes, only the
protein coding hypothetical genes (97 out of 408) and their corresponding products were selected for further exploration. Of these, 11
proteins were found to have notable conserved domains, of which one hypothetical protein (NCBI Acc No. AGQ35418.1) was selected for
further in silico exploration which was found to have two functional domains, one having phosphatidylinositol specific phospholipase C
(PI-PLC) activity while the other short domain with weak lectin binding activity. As PI-PLC contributes virulence property in some
pathogenic bacteria with a broad range of activities, different bioinformatic tools were used to explore its physicochemical and other
important properties which indicated its secretary nature. This PI-PLC was previously not reported as drug/vaccine target to the best of
our knowledge. Its predicted 3D structure can be explored for development of inhibitor for novel therapeutic strategies against MDR-TB.
An organophosphate (OP) degrading chemotactic bacterial strain BUR11 isolated from an agricultural field was identified as a member of Pseudomonas genus on the basis of its 16S rRNA gene sequence. The strain could utilize parathion, chlorpyrifos and their major hydrolytic intermediates as sole source of carbon for its growth and exhibited positive chemotactic response towards most of them. Optimum concentration of parathion for its growth was recorded to be 200 ppm and 62% of which was degraded within 96 h at 37 °C. Growth studies indicated the strain to be moderately thermo-halo tolerant in nature. Investigation based on identification of intermediates of parathion degradation by thin layer chromatography (TLC), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC) and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) provided evidence for possible existence of two pathways. The first pathway proceeds via 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) while the second proceeds through formation of 4-aminoparathion (4-APar), 4-aminophenol (4-AP) and parabenzoquinone (PBQ). This is the first report of chemotaxis towards organophosphate compound by a thermo-halo tolerant bacterium.
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