Prevalence of Antimicrobial Resistance and Respective Genes among Bacillus spp., a Versatile Bio-Fungicide

Pari Wash, Asiya Batool, Shah Mulk, Shabnum Nazir, Humaira Yasmin, Saqib Mumtaz, Mohammed Nasser Alyemeni, Prashant Kaushik and Muhammad Nadeem Hassan ()
Additional contact information
Pari Wash: Department of Biosciences, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Park Road, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan
Asiya Batool: Department of Biosciences, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Park Road, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan
Shah Mulk: Department of Biosciences, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Park Road, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan
Shabnum Nazir: Department of Biosciences, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Park Road, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan
Humaira Yasmin: Department of Biosciences, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Park Road, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan
Saqib Mumtaz: Department of Biosciences, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Park Road, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan
Mohammed Nasser Alyemeni: Botany and Microbiology Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Prashant Kaushik: Instituto de Conservation y Mejora de la Agrodiversidad, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Muhammad Nadeem Hassan: Department of Biosciences, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Park Road, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 22, 1-14

Abstract: The plant rhizosphere is not only a reservoir of microbes but also a hub of antimicrobial resistance genes. Rhizospheric Bacillus spp. are the potential bio-inoculants with a versatile application in agriculture as bio-fertilizer and bio-fungicide. In the current study, the potential bio-control agent that is the Bacillus species (n = 7) was screened for the antimicrobial resistance pattern to assess their risk before registering them as a bio-inoculant. All of the Bacillus spp. were categorized as multi-drug-resistant (MDR), bacteria but none of them was either pan-drug-resistant (PDR) or extensive-drug-resistant (XDR). The multiple antimicrobial resistance (MAR) index of Bacillus spp. was higher than the critical value (0.2). The Bacillus spp. showed resistance to antimicrobial classes such as β lactam, macrolides, sulfonamides, tetracycline, aminoglycosides, and lincosamide. Various antimicrobial resistance genes, namely VmiR , ImrB , tetL , mphK , ant-6 , penp , and bla OXA , associated with different mechanisms of resistance, were also detected in Bacillus spp. The Bacillus spp. also showed stress-tolerance traits such as ACC deaminase and EPS activity except the strains MAZ-117 and FZV-34, respectively. A significant correlation was observed between the PGPR and antimicrobial resistance, which shows that they may have adapted drug-resistance mechanisms to tolerate the environmental stress. These findings suggest that bio-fungicidal Bacillus spp. could be used very carefully on a commercial scale.

Keywords: plant growth promoting rhizobacteria; Bacillus spp.; multi drug resistance; MAR index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/22/14997/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/22/14997/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:22:p:14997-:d:972548

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().