Homology Modeling and in silicoStructural Annotation of the Toxin-Antitoxin Systems in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Abstract

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium that can cause disease in humans and animals. A species of considerable medical importance, P. aeruginosa is a prototypical "multidrug resistant (MDR) pathogen" recognised for its ubiquity, its intrinsically advanced antibiotic tolerance mechanisms. P. aeruginosa is associated with serious illnesses – especially hospital acquired infections, cystic fibrosis and traumatic burns in human. Recent studies suggested that toxin-antitoxin systems play a key role in the tolerance.Inthe present study, we found five toxin-antitoxin systems in the genome of P. aeruginosa, out of which two are located on plasmid (pNOR-200)and three are located on chromosome.We applied homology modeling techniques to study the sequence and structure relationships of toxinantitoxin systems. The study reveals the presence of toxin-antitoxin system in P. aeruginosa that interact with RNA and proteins in the cellular environment and halt normal cellular process by inhibiting the molecules involve in translation, transcription and other important metabolic pathways that leads to multidrug tolerance.