Abstract
Author(s): Williard Mazhawidza, Yankuba Banda, and Narayanan Rajendran
Soil bacteria display their self-defense as an essential disposition to withstand unfavorable rhizobial conditions. They employ those mechanisms through catabolic and/or anabolic metabolisms such as detoxification of xenobiotis or biosynthesis of nutrients de novo. In this study, newly isolated soil bacterium Arthrobacter nicotianae strain PR was identified, characterized and bioinformatically examined to reveal its synthetase gene. The bacterial genomic DNA was probed in PCR with degenerate synthetase primers. The amplified PCR product was cloned and sequenced. The gene and protein sequence analysis was made using MEGA 4 software and BLASTX search of NCBI-linked protein databases. The conserved amino acid residues revealed the match to aldo-keto reductase (AKR). The multiple sequence-data alignments analysis confirmed the AKR, and multiple phylogeneitic data analysis confirmed its relationship with other bacteria. This enzyme, AKR, belongs to a growing oxidoreductase superfamily and metabolizes a wide range of substrates, including aliphatic aldehydes, monosaccharides, steroids, prostaglandins, and xenobiotics. Our phylogenetic study reveals that this protein is potentially vital in assisting bacteria withstand unfavorable soil environmental condition. Since AKR found in many bacteria and eukaryotes like mammals, amphibians etc, the phylogenetic relationship between our soil isolate and other bacteria was significant as it revealed a distant relationship with A. aurescens.
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