Influence of imidacloprid treatment on Protein Profiling of soil isolate Bacillus weihenstephanensis

Imidacloprid has gained great attention as a synthetic insecticide that acts in a similar manner as nicotine and is now widely used for the control of pests. Bacteria react to environmental or chemical stress by synthesizing specific sets of proteins and these can be analyzed by protein profiling using SDS PAGE. The present investigation was undertaken to reveal protein profile changes and differentially expressed proteins in soil isolate Bacillus weihenstephanensis on dose and durational exposure to imidacloprid. Protein profiling of Bacillus weihenstephanensis treated with different (10 -7 to 10 -3 M) concentrations of imidacloprid observed regularly at the duration of 24 hrs for a period of 96 hours, showed the over expressions of certain protein, expression of stress proteins and novel proteins. The proteins expressed were observed to be dose and durational dependent. The present investigation proves that imidacloprid exposure induces the expression of stress and novel proteins in soil isolate Bacillus weihenstephanensis . The expression of these proteins may be necessary for the protection of the Bacillus weihenstephanensis from toxic effects of imidacloprid. The specific protein profiles that are expressed in response to the stress induced by imidacloprid can be used to monitor the environmental samples for the presence of similar pollutants.