3^rd Global Microbiologists Annual Meeting August 15-17, 2016 Portland, Oregon, USA
(5 Plenary Forums - 1 Event)

Muhammad Asad Uz Zaman has completed his B.Pharm. and M.Pharm. from Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Dhaka. Abstract of his thesis was orally presented in 39th Annual meeting of Environmental mutagen society of India (EMSI) on “Biotechnological Advances in Environmental Health and Biodiversity Conservation (EHBC)” at Manipur University on May, 2015. He was awarded National Science and Technology Fellowship (2014-2015) provided by Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of Bangladesh. He is a Registered Pharmacist (Grade – A) under the Pharmacy Council of Bangladesh. He is currently working as a product development officer in ACI (Advanced Chemical Industries) Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Thrombosis leads to myocardial infarction, stroke and other cardiovascular complications. Thrombolytic agents such as t-PA, u-PA, streptokinase etc are used to treat complications related to thrombosis. However, investigations are being pursued to find out new microbial enzymes as thrombolytics having better efficacy and specificity with less side effects, availability and affordability. To search for new thrombolytic proteases from microbial sources, two mutant strains of Bacillus licheniformis MZK05M9 and Bacillus licheniformis EMS250-O-1 were cultured in modified Urea-glucose and Urea-molasses medium at 370C under shake culture conditions yielding 840.112 units/mg and 1128.992 units/mg respectively. The enzymes were partially purified using ammonium sulfate precipitation and ultrafiltration yielding 37713.922 units/mg from MZK05M9 and 40129.916 units/mg from EMS250-O-1. The molecular weight of the partially purified enzymes from the strain MZK05M9 was approximately 27.2 kDa and purification increased its specific activity to 16.49 fold with a recovery of 10%, whereas the same from the strain EMS250-O-1 was approximately 25.5 kDa with an increase in 12.28 fold having a recovery of 17.8%. The partially purified protease enzymes exhibited 32.84% and 38.01% thrombolytic activity for strain MZK05M9 and EMS250-O-1 respectively, by in-vitro clot lysis assay. The present results will be an useful basis for development of viable thrombolytic drugs to prevent or cure thrombosis and related disorders.

Samer M. Al-Hulu, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, has completed his PhD at the age of 29 years from Babylon University/College of Science. He has published more than 14 papers in microbiology field. Al-Hulu, has training at Ministry of Health at Laboratory of Babylon Maternity and Children Hospital. Now working at Al-Qasim Green University/College of Food Science.

Quorum sensing (QS) is a process which included communication between bacterial cells, also involved production, deletion and response for extracellular signaling molecules which called autoinducer (AI). AI due to accumulation of bacterial and the density increased and changing in their cell number and altering in gene expression. Quorum sensing control genes having more benefit when groups of bacteria acting in synchrony. There are three types of quorum sensing system which includes LuxI/LuxR –type which found in gram negative bacteria which using acyl-homoserine lactones (AHL) as a signal molecules, oligopeptide –two component-type which found in gram positive bacteria which using small peptide as signal molecules, and LuxS encoded autoinducer 2 (AI-2) quorum sensing which found in both gram positive and gram negative bacteria. There are many examples about biofilm formation by Qs system such as Lux-dependent system which mediate biofilm formation in S.pneumonia, Com CDE system which responsible for biofilm formation in Streptococcus mutans, AI play an important role in oral cavity biofilm for Streptococcus gordonii as well as the etiology of dental caries Streptococcus mutans. AI stimulate biofilm formation and changes its architecture by stimulating flagellar motility via quorum sensing regulator MqsR which act through the two component motility regulatory system QseBC.The recent finding showed that AI-2 regulate biofilm formation in Actinomycetemcomitans, though QseB system. The formation of biofilm in P.aeruginosa is coordinated by QS pathway which involves the transcriptional regulator LasR and RhIR system and the signal QS molecules:C12HSL(N-C3-oxododecanoyl-HSLlactone)=OdDHL) andC4-HSL [ N-butanoyl-L-HSL].

Dr. Rania Abdelmonem Mostafa Khattab has completed her Ph.D in 2012 from Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, Microbiology and Immunology Department. She is a lecturer at Microbiology and Immunology Department, Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. She has got Cairo University International Publication Award, Egypt in 2013 and 2016. She has many teaching experiences for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses e.g. basic microbiology and immunology, pharmaceutical microbiology, quality control of herbal drugs, public health and biotechnology. She has attended many workshops and some conferences with poster presentation in the Global Biotechnology Congress, Boston, MA, USA in June 2014. And oral presentation in Clinical Trials Conference, Orlando, Florida, July, 2015. She published many papers in International Journals.

Aflatoxin belongs to a group of fungal toxins known as mycotoxins, and is widespread in agricultural products and food. Aflatoxin is associated with both acute and chronic toxicity in animals and humans, including acute liver damage, liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. Aflatoxins are predominantly produced by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus, but may also be produced by other strains, such as Aspergillus nomius, Aspergillus tamari, and Aspergillus pseudotamarii. Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is a highly toxic compound found in milk. Aflatoxin M1 is considered as a ‘milk toxin’. Presence of aflatoxin M1 in milk is a public health hazard. Growing children are more sensitive than adults as milk is one of their main sources of nutrients. The aim of this study is to determine the ability of specific lactic acid bacteria strains to remove aflatoxin M1 from liquid media. Six dairy strains of lactic acid bacteria were tested for their ability to remove aflatoxin M1 from liquid medium. Both viable and dead bacteria from the same population were tested. Two lactic acid bacterial strains which exhibited the best AFM1 removal abilities were also tested using contaminated skimmed and full cream milk. Both skimmed milk and full cream milk were used with both viable and heat-killed bacteria assessed. All strains, both viable and heat-killed, could reduce the AFM1 content of a liquid medium. From the results we can conclude that specific dairy strains of lactic acid bacteria can offer means of decontaminating aflatoxin M1 from milk.

Mona Hassan Mahmoud is currently a Teaching Assistant of Microbiology and Immunology at Faculty of Pharmacy, Ahram Canadian University with 4 years of teaching experience to undergraduate pharmacy students. She has completed Bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences at Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University in 2011. She is fascinated in the continued importance of focusing my future studies on antimicrobial resistance because it is a growing threat to the control of infectious disease globally and particularly there is an encountered increase in antimicrobial resistance in our hospitals all over Egypt, therefore her primary interest lies in the field of healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial resistance.

Acinetobacter baumannii is a remarkable hospital pathogen, the virulence factors of this organism such as biofilm formation, bacterial adherence and invasion help the bacterium to survive in adverse environmental conditions and facilitate the development of an infection. Antiseptics are frequently used for the management of MDR pathogens and their consistent use in hospitals has elevated concerns about its resistance. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of sub-minimum inhibitory concentrations (sub-MICs) of selected antimicrobial agents (Amikacin, imipenem, benzalkonium chloride (BZC) and chlorhexidine) and natural product (garlic) on virulence factors and the emergence of resistance among A. baumannii clinical isolates. Susceptibility profiles of 50 A. baumannii isolates to eight antibiotics were investigated. MIC of various antimicrobial agents was measured by the broth microdilution method. Quantification of biofilm formation was carried out using a microtiter plate assay. The ability of test compounds to affect the bacterial adherence and invasion was investigated using type-II pneumocyte cell line (A549) and the bacterial cells count was determined using flow cytometer. Screening for the presence of qacA/B gene was done using PCR. Our results showed that 10 isolates were found to have variation in their susceptibility toward both amikacin and imipenem where 6 isolates were amikacin sensitive and imipenem resistant (ASIR) while 4 isolates were amikacin resistant and imipenem sensitive (ARIS).The sub MIC of BZC markedly increased the biofilm formation by 4.7 and 7.8 folds for ASIR group and ARIS group respectively. An induction in the bacterial adherence post treatment with sub-MIC of amikacin in both groups by 3 folds. Bacterial invasion was markedly increased post treatment with BZC and imipenem by 7 and 4 folds respectively in ASIR isolates, BZC showed the greatest effect ARIS isolates as it was increased by 12 folds. Amikacin had the highest effect in ASIR isolates where BZC and garlic had the highest effect in ARIS isolates 5 hours post treatment. The qacA/B gene was detected in 6 isolates. In conclusion, sub-MICs of antibiotics and antiseptics can lead to emergence of resistance. Therefore, careful evaluation of sub-MIC effects on bacterial physiology is needed prior to the therapeutic use.rnrn

Basit Jabbar has done M.S. Biotechnology from Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of the Punjab in 2014 and is working in University of the Punjab as a research associate and visiting lecturer. He has worked on cloning of thermostable bacterial α-amylase during his B.S. degree from Institute of Industrial Biotechnology from Government College University Lahore and on human genetics during his M.S. degree.

Molecular techniques coupled with bioinformatics analysis have been shown to be a rapid, cost-effective and efficient strategy for diagnosis and serotype characterization of fowl adenoviruses. The study involved diagnosis and characterization of fowl adenoviruses from the inclusion body hepatitis-hydropericardium syndrome cases in Pakistan in 2015. Fowl adenovirus DNA was isolated and hexon gene region was amplified by PCR and amplicons were sequenced by Sanger dideoxy sequencing. A total of 8 adenovirus hexon gene loop 1 region sequences were used in subsequent phylogenetic analysis with the previous isolates identified from BLAST. Serotype 11 was diagnosed in 87% and serotype 1 in 10% of the cases while the least identified serotypes were serotype 8 (4%) and serotype 4 (2%). Sequences were submitted to NCBI. Query sequences together with the respective homologues were retrieved in FASTA format and imported to MEGA 7.0 for multiple sequence alignment using clustal-w tool. Neighbor joining method was used to infer evolutionary history and 1000 bootstrap replicates were applied. Tajima-Nei method was selected to compute evolutionary distances, shown as number of base substitutions per site. Exclusion of alignment gaps resulted in 487 positions in the final dataset and 32 sequences were used to build the phylogenetic tree. Results of bioinformatics analysis indicated close relationship of the query sequences with the previous isolates of fowl adenoviruses from Pakistan, India, China, Austria, Itlay, Russia, US and Canada.