Penicillin and Cephalosporin Biosynthesis

Abstract

Elizabethkingia anophelis is a bacteria that causes human disease (1). It is most commonly found in the gut of mosquitoes. Characteristics include that the bacteria are rod-shaped, arranged singularly or in pairs, and appear Gram Negative (1).The Elizabethkingia genome is made of many pathways. Using various databases provided to us, we were able to isolate a pathway called Penicillin and Cephalosporin Biosynthesis, which is made up of 5 beta-lactamase genes. Beta-lactamase are enzymes that provide resistance to antibiotics such as penicillin, cephamycin, and carbapenems (2). All five of these genes were expressed in all three conditions, meaning that it hit contains in all three libraries, but only one gene expressed significant fold changes. Each of our were each resistant to penicillin. This led us to the conclusion that the Elixabethkingia bacteria as a whole is very resistant to penicillin, which is highly unusual for there to be multiple genes that are this resistant.