Antibiotic resistance is a global concern. Two members of the bacterial genus Elizabethkingia, namely, E. anophelis and E. meningoseptica have raised much concern in recent years because of their resistance to multiple commonly used antibiotics. Identification of multidrug resistant and pan-drug resistant bacteria has propelled the search for new antibiotics that can act on unconventional targets. Researches are going on to find out the possibility of using bacterial ribonucleotide reductases as a novel target for antibiotic development. Through in silico evaluations, this study aims for characterization and functional annotation of ribonucleotide reductase enzymes of E. anophelis and E. meningoseptica. Binding affinities with these enzymes of the compounds that have shown promising results in inhibiting Pseudomonas aeruginosa growth by acting on its ribonucleotide reductase were also assessed by molecular docking and dynamics simulations. Insights from this study will help in battling these infections in the near future. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.
Keywords: Antibiotic resistance; drug target; homology modeling; protein characterization; ribonucleotide reductase.