MycoProtease-DB: Useful resource for Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and nontuberculous mycobacterial proteases.

UNLABELLED: MycoProtease-DB is an online MS SQL and CGI-PERL driven relational database that domiciles protease information of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) complex and Nontuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM), whose complete genome sequence is available. Our effort is to provide comprehensive information on proteases of 5 strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (H(37)Rv, H(37)Ra, CDC1551, F11 and KZN 1435), 3 strains of Mycobacterium bovis (AF2122/97, BCG Pasteur 1173P2 and BCG Tokyo 172) and 4 strains of NTM (Mycobacterium avium 104, Mycobacterium smegmatis MC2 155, Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis K-10 and Nocardia farcinica IFM 10152) at gene, protein and structural level. MycoProtease-DB currently hosts 1324 proteases, which include 906 proteases from MTB complex with 237distinct proteases & 418 from NTM with 404 distinct proteases. Flexible database design and easy expandability & retrieval of information are the main features of MycoProtease-DB. All the data were validated with various online resources and published literatures for reliable serving as comprehensive resources of various Mycobacterial proteases. AVAILABILITY: The Database is publicly available at http://www.bicjbtdrc-mgims.in/MycoProtease-DB/

MTB-PCDB: Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteome comparison database.

UNLABELLED: The Mycobacterium tuberculosis Proteome Comparison Database (MTB-PCDB) is an online database providing integrated access to proteome sequence comparison data for five strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (H37Rv, H37Ra, CDC 1551, F11 and KZN 1435) sequenced completely so far. MTB-PCDB currently hosts 40252 protein sequence comparison data obtained through inter-strain proteome comparison of five different strains of MTB. 2373 proteins were found to be identical in all 5 strains using MTB H(37)Rv as reference strain. To enable wide use of this data, MTB-PCDB provides a set of tools for searching, browsing, analyzing and downloading the data. By bringing together, M. tuberculosis proteome comparison among virulent & avirulent strains and also drug susceptible & drug resistance strains MTB-PCDB provides a unique discovery platform for comparative proteomics among these strains which may give insights into the discovery & development of TB drugs, vaccines and biomarkers. AVAILABILITY: The database is available for free at http://www.bicjbtdrc-mgims.in/MTB-PCDB/

A cocktail of affinity-purified antibodies reactive with diagnostically useful mycobacterial antigens ES-31, ES-43, and EST-6 for detecting the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

A cocktail of affinity-purified antibodies against diagnostically useful Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Ra excretory-secretory protein antigens ES-31, ES-43, and EST-6 was explored for detection of circulating free and immune-complexed (IC) antigen in sera of patients with confirmed tuberculosis (TB) by sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and compared with monospecific anti-ES-31 antibody. Out of 68 smear-positive TB cases studied, using cocktail antibody, a sensitivity of 97% (66/68) for immune-complexed cocktail antigen and 91% (62/68) for free cocktail-antigen detection was observed, compared to 91% (62/68) for immune-complexed ES-31 and 79% (54/68) for free ES-31 antigen when anti-ES-31 antibody was used alone. Thus, combinatorial use of antibodies showed improved sensitivity and was thus observed to be better than single antibody. The specificity was observed to be 99% for immune-complexed antigen using cocktail antibody. Furthermore, analysis of different groups of TB sera showed that circulating immune-complexed antigen is a sensitive marker than free antigen.

Setaria cervi: immunoprophylactic potential of glutathione-S-transferase against filarial parasite Brugia malayi.

Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) has been detected in the adult female Setaria cervi, a bovine filarial parasite. The role of S. cervi GST antigen in inducing immunity in the host against Brugia malayi microfilariae and infective larvae was studied by in vitro antibody dependent cell mediated reaction as well as in situ inoculation of filarial parasites within a microchamber in Mastomys. The immune sera from glutathione-S-transferase immunized Mastomys promoted the adherence of peritoneal exudate cells to B. malayi microfilariae and infective larvae in vitro inducing 80.7 and 77.6% cytotoxicity, respectively in 72 h. In the microchambers implanted in the immunized Mastomys host cells could migrate and adhere to the microfilariae and infective larvae and induced 77.8 and 75% cytotoxicity to B. malayi microfilariae and infective larvae in 72 h, respectively. These results suggest that native GST from S. cervi is effective in inducing protection against heterologous B. malayi filarial parasite and thus has potential in immunoprophylaxis.