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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Experimental and Diagnostic Pathology
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1446930

Genomic comparison between Mycobacterium bovis and Mycobacterium microti and in silico Analysis of Peptide-Based Biomarkers for Serodiagnosis

Provisionally accepted
Moens Charlotte Moens Charlotte 1,2*Bert Bogaerts Bert Bogaerts 2Victor Lorente-Leal Victor Lorente-Leal 3Kevin Vanneste Kevin Vanneste 2Sigrid C. De Keersmaecker Sigrid C. De Keersmaecker 2Nancy Roosens Nancy Roosens 2Laurent Mostin Laurent Mostin 2David Fretin David Fretin 2Sylvie Marché Sylvie Marché 2
  • 1 Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
  • 2 Sciensano, Brussels, Belgium
  • 3 VISAVET Health Surveillance Centre (UCM), Madrid, Madrid, Spain

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of reported cases of Mycobacterium microti infection in various animals, which can interfere with the ante-mortem diagnosis of animal tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis. In this study, whole genome sequencing (WGS) was used to search for protein-coding genes to distinguish M. microti from M. bovis. In addition, the population structure of the available M. microti genomic WGS datasets is described, including three novel Belgian isolates from infections in alpacas. Candidate genes were identified by examining the presence of the regions of difference and by a pan-genome analysis of the available WGS data. A total of 80 genes showed presence-absence variation between the two species, including genes encoding Proline-Glutamate (PE), Proline-Proline-Glutamate (PPE), and Polymorphic GC-Rich Sequence (PE-PGRS) proteins involved in virulence and host interaction. Filtering based on predicted subcellular localization, sequence homology and predicted antigenicity resulted in 28 proteins out of 80 that were predicted to be potential antigens. As synthetic peptides are less costly and variable than recombinant proteins, an in silico approach was performed to identify linear and discontinuous B-cell epitopes in the selected proteins. From the 28 proteins, 157 B-cell epitope-based peptides were identified that discriminated between M. bovis and M. microti species. Although confirmation by in vitro testing is still required, these candidate synthetic peptides containing B-cell epitopes could potentially be used in serological tests to differentiate cases of M. bovis from M. microti infection, thus reducing misdiagnosis in animal tuberculosis surveillance.

    Keywords: Mycobacterium microti, Mycobacterium bovis, Tuberculosis, B-Cell epitopes, diagnosis, Whole-genome sequencing, Antigens

    Received: 10 Jun 2024; Accepted: 28 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Charlotte, Bogaerts, Lorente-Leal, Vanneste, De Keersmaecker, Roosens, Mostin, Fretin and Marché. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Moens Charlotte, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

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