Antimicrobial drug resistance stand as a huge global challenge presently. The gram negative bacilli are on the rise and no new antimicrobial directed against these antibiotic resistant organisms have emerged in recent times. Six out of the nine Lipid A biosynthesis enzymes and their genes are highly significant and lpxC gene in particular because of its regulatory role has been reported to be conserved in a large majority of gram negative bacteria. Considering the conserved nature and universality of occurrence of the lpxC gene in the gram negative bacteria an in-depth codon utilization analysis of the lpxC gene was carried out from the genomic viewpoint in 16 different human pathogenic gram-negative bacteria. In this study, the emphasis has been laid to find out whether the codon usage pattern of the lpxC gene reflects the genomic codon usage design or does it possess some unique codon usage attributes. Codon usage study of the lpxC gene showed the gene to be under high degree of codon bias in most of the organisms considered in this study. The analysis of GC content of the lpxC gene demonstrated the gene to have varying GC content in comparison to their genomic GC content which probably suggests that horizontal gene transfer events may have played a significant role in the shaping up and accommodation of the lpxC gene within the genome of most of these pathogenic organisms.
