M.abscessus Proteome and Secretome

ABSTRACT: Members of the Mycobacterium (M.) abscessus complex (MABC) are rapidly growing mycobacteria showing smooth and/or rough colony morphotype. While not as virulent as M. tuberculosis, they can cause soft tissue infection and fatal pulmonary disease, especially in patients with cystic fibrosis. Diagnosing MABC pulmonary disease is challenging since the isolation of M. abscessus from respiratory samples is in itself not diagnostic and the clinical features are often non-specific. Immunologic assays, which could aid in the understanding and diagnosis of the disease, are not available. In this study eight rough and six smooth colony morphotype isolates were collected from seven clinical MABC strains and the M. abscessus reference strain ATCC19977, as six strains showed both morphotypes simultaneously and two strains only showed a rough morphotype. Clinical isolates were submitted to whole genome sequencing. Quantitative proteomic analysis was performed on bacterial lysates and the culture supernatant of all 14 isolates. Supernatant proteins present in all isolates were compared in a BLAST search against other clinically significant mycobacterial species to determine species-specific proteins of MABC. In silico B- and T-cell epitope prediction was performed for species-specific proteins. All clinical strains were found to be M. abscessus ssp. abscessus. Six of seven rough colony clinical isolates contained genetic changes in the MAB_4099c gene, which is a likely genetic basis for the rough morphotype. Proteomic analysis detected 3 137 different proteins in total of which 79 proteins were found in the culture supernatants of all isolates. BLAST analyses of these 79 proteins identified 12 of those exclusively encoded by all members of MABC plus M. immunogenum. In silico prediction of epitopes predicted B- and T-cell epitopes in all these 12 species-specific proteins, rendering them promising candidates for future studies on immune pathogenesis and immune diagnostic tools for MABC disease.

INSTRUMENT(S): Q Exactive

ORGANISM(S): Mycobacterium Abscessus

TISSUE(S): Prokaryotic Cell

DISEASE(S): Disease Free

SUBMITTER: Anja Stefanski  

LAB HEAD: Kai Stühler

PROVIDER: PXD010504 | Pride | 2022-01-19

REPOSITORIES: Pride