The arsR gene: A comparative phylogenetic and bioinformatics analysis to study reasons for different sensitivity to arsenic compounds

Objectives: The overall goal of this study was to carry out a set of comparative analyses of arsR gene in plasmid R773 and bacterial chromosome fromEscherichia coli BL-21(DE3). Methods: PDB and NCBI databases and Chimera, Mega4, CLC main workbench software and 3D-jigsaw and EMBL-EBI servers were applied to perform this study. By using these software and servers, multiple analyses including determination of residue composition, secondary structure and motifs, 3D structure, conserved regions, etc. were done. Results: The results suggest that such high sensitivity to arsenic compounds in ars-containing plasmid R773 may be related to ArsR protein characteristics such as amino acids composition, secondary and tertiary structure, hydrophobicity, level of interaction with DNA. Conclusion: Bioinformatics studies could be applied to describe the reason of different sensitivities to Arsenic compounds between arsR gene and ArsR protein in plasmid R773 and bacterial chromosome.