Research Article Enzymatic Activity and Horizontal Gene Transfer of Heavy Metals and Antibiotic Resistant Proteus vulgaris from Hospital Wastewater: An Insight Manzar Alam , 1 Nilofer Bano, 2 Tarun Kumar Upadhyay , 3 Reem Binsuwaidan , 4 Nawaf Alshammari, 5 Amit Baran Sharangi , 6 Radhey Shyam Kaushal , 3 and Mohd Saeed 5 1 Department of Biosciences, ntegral University, Lucknow 226026, Uttar Pradesh, ndia 2 Department of Bioengineering, ntegral University, Lucknow 226026, Uttar Pradesh, ndia 3 Department of Biotechnology, Parul nstitute of Applied Sciences and Centre of Research for Development, Parul University, Vadodara 391760, Gujarat, ndia 4 Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 5 Department of Biology, College of Science, University of Ha’il, Ha’il, P.O. Box 2440, Saudi Arabia 6 Department of Plantation Spices Medicinal and Aromatic Crops, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur 741252, West Bengal, ndia Correspondence should e addressed to Tarun Kumar Upadhyay; tarun_ioinfo@yahoo.co.in, Reem Binsuwaidan; rainsuwaidan@pnu.edu.sa, and Mohd Saeed; mo.saeed@uoh.edu.sa Received 20 September 2022; Revised 28 October 2022; Accepted 16 November 2022; Published 6 December 2022 Academic Editor: Mejdi Snoussi Copyright © 2022 Manzar Alam et al. Tis is an open access article distriuted under the Creative Commons Attriution License, which permits unrestricted use, distriution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Gloally, the issue of microial resistance to medicines and heavy metals is getting worse. Tere are few reports or data availale for Proteus vulgaris (P. vulgaris), particularly in India. Tis investigation intends to reveal the acteria’s aility to transmit genes and their level of resistance as well. Te wastewater samples were taken from several hospitals in Lucknow City, India, and examined for the presence of Gram•negative acteria that were resistant to antiiotics and heavy metals. Te microial population count in diferent hospital wastewaters decreases with increasing concentrations of metal and antiiotics. Among all the examined metals, Ni and Zn had the highest viale counts, whereas Hg, Cd, and Co had the lowest viale counts. Penicillin, ampicillin, and amoxicillin, among the antiiotics, demonstrated higher viale counts, whereas tetracycline and erythromycin exhiited lower viale counts. Te MIC values for the P. vulgaris isolates tested ranged from 50 to 16,00 μg/ml for each metal tested. Te multiple metal resistance (MMR) index, which ranged from 0.04 to 0.50, showed diverse heavy metal resistance patterns in all P. vulgaris isolates (in the case of 2–7 metals in various cominations). All of the tested isolates had methicillin resistance, whereas the least numer of isolates had ofoxacin, gentamycin, or neomycin resistance. Te P. vulgaris isolates displayed multidrug resistance patterns (2–12 drugs) in various antiiotic cominations. Te MAR indexes were shown to e etween (0.02–0.7). From the total isolates, 98%, 84%, and 80% had urease, gelatinase, and amylase activity, whereas 68% and 56% displayed protease and eta• lactamase activity. Plasmids were present in all the selected resistant isolates and varied in size from 42.5 to 57.0 k and molecular weight from 27.2 to 37.0 MD. Te transmission of the antiiotic/metal resistance genes was evaluated etween a total of 7 pairs of isolates. A higher transfer frequency (4.4 × 10 −1 ) was oserved among antiiotics, although a lower transfer frequency (1.0 × 10 −2 ) was oserved against metals in oth the media from the entire site tested. According to exponential decay, the population of hospital wastewater declined in the following order across all sites: Site II > Site IV > Site III > Site I for antiiotics and site IV > site II > site I >site III for metal. Diferent metal and antiiotic concentrations have varying efects on the population. Te metal• tolerant P. vulgaris from hospital wastewater was studied in the current study had multiple distinct patterns of antiiotic re• sistance. It could provide cutting•edge methods for treating infectious diseases, which are essential for managing and assessing the risks associated with hospital wastewater, especially in the case of P. vulgaris. Hindawi Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology Volume 2022, Article ID 3399137, 16 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/3399137