In silico analysis of drug-resistant genes of Staphylococcus aureus

Abstract

Drug-resistant strains of pathogenic bacteria are recently considered a devastating health problem. Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium that commonly lives on the skin and in the nasal passages of approximately one-third of the population without causing any harm. One of the major concerns with Staphylococcus aureus is its ability to develop antibiotic resistance. Drug-resistant genes play an important role in determining the characteristics of bacteria mechanisms of drug resistance. The identification of promoters in a gene is an important part of the recognition of a gene's complete structure. An in silico study was done to analyze the promoter regions and transcription factors with the aid of the transcription start site, regulatory elements, and motifs of genes. Most of the predicted transcription start sites (75 %) were found above 500 bp value either upstream or downstream from the start codon of the gene being expressed. Motif I was identified as the most common motif for the predicted genes, which serves as binding sites to regulate the expression of the genes. A variety of regulatory elements including enhancers, insulators, transcription factors, and cellular proteins are involved in the regulation of gene expression. In general, in silico analysis of drug-resistant genes of Staphylococcus aureus could provide valuable insights about the transcription factor binding, and gene regulatory elements in the promoter regions that can lead to promising research targets in drug designing and development. Therefore, further studies should be made to study resistance-related proteins, the protein-protein interaction networks, the pathways involved in mechanisms underlying resistance, and facilitating the design of target-specific drugs.

Keywords

• Antibiotic resistance
• Promoter
• Staphylococcus aureus
• Transcription factor
• Transcription start site