Microbial pathogens including Enterobacteriaceae family members bear different antibiotic resistance genes comprising Extended-Spectrum-ß-Lactamases (ESBLs) and Metallo-ß-Lactamases (MBLs) on their chromosomes and mobile genetic elements such as plasmids and transposons. Because of the clinical concern regarding MBLs in global public healthcare system, this review focuses on different characteristics of MBLs. For preparing this review article, different databases, websites and search engines such as MEDLINE, SCOPUS, SCIENCEDIRECT and GOOGLE SCHOLAR were searched via MeSH keywords of Enterobacteriaceae, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, MBL and Bioinformatics. Different types of papers comprising review articles and original articles which were published between the years of 1980 and 2020 were searched, studied and selected by the authors. The results show that, the importance of the spread of MBLs among microbial pathogens may lead to progressive studies for definite treatment. The use of computational biology and chemistry and bioinformatics has had effective consequences on recognition and identification of different properties of MBLs. The application of bioinformatic software tools and databases gives us a great promise regarding production of effective inhibitors against MBLs to have a definite treatment.
Keywords: Bioinformatics; Enterobacteriaceae; Escherichia coli; Klebsiella pneumoniae; Metallo-Beta-Lactamase.