Expression and field evaluation of new Mycobacterium bovis antigens.

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) represents a threat to livestock production. Mycobacterium bovis is the main causative agent of bTB and a pathogen capable of infecting wildlife and humans. Eradication programs based on surveillance in slaughterhouses with mandatory testing and culling of reactive cattle have failed to eradicate bTB in many regions worldwide. Therefore, developing effective tools to control this disease is crucial. Using a computational tool, we identified proteins in the M. bovis proteome that carry predictive binding peptides to BoLADRB3.2 and selected Mb0309, Mb1090, Mb1810 and Mb3810 from all the identified proteins. The expression of these proteins in a baculovirus-insect cell expression system was successful only for Mb0309 and Mb3810. In parallel, we expressed the ESAT-6 family proteins EsxG and EsxH in this system. Among the recombinant proteins, Mb0309 and EsxG exhibited moderate performance in distinguishing between cattle that test positive and negative to bTB using the official test, the intradermal tuberculin test (IDT), when used to stimulate interferon-gamma production in blood samples from cattle. However, when combined as a protein cocktail, Mb0309 and EsxG were reactive in 50 % of positive cattle. Further assessments in cattle that evade the IDT (false negative) and cattle infected with Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis are necessary to determine the potential utility of this cocktail as an additional tool to assist the accurate diagnosis of bTB.

Study of the in vivo role of Mce2R, the transcriptional regulator of mce2 operon in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis is one of the leading causes of mortality throughout the world. Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the agent of human tuberculosis, has developed strategies involving proteins and other compounds called virulence factors to subvert human host defences and damage and invade the human host. Among these virulence-related proteins are the Mce proteins, which are encoded in the mce1, mce2, mce3 and mce4 operons of M. tuberculosis. The expression of the mce2 operon is negatively regulated by the Mce2R transcriptional repressor. Here we evaluated the role of Mce2R during the infection of M. tuberculosis in mice and macrophages and defined the genes whose expression is in vitro regulated by this transcriptional repressor. RESULTS: We used a specialized transduction method for generating a mce2R mutant of M. tuberculosis H37Rv. Although we found equivalent replication of the MtΔmce2R mutant and the wild type strains in mouse lungs, overexpression of Mce2R in the complemented strain (MtΔmce2RComp) significantly impaired its replication. During in vitro infection of macrophages, we observed a significantly increased association of the late endosomal marker LAMP-2 to MtΔmce2RComp-containing phagosomes as compared to MtΔmce2R and the wild type strains. Whole transcriptional analysis showed that Mce2R regulates mainly the expression of the mce2 operon, in the in vitro conditions studied. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of the current study indicate that Mce2R weakly represses the in vivo expression of the mce2 operon in the studied conditions and argue for a role of the proteins encoded in Mce2R regulon in the arrest of phagosome maturation induced by M. tuberculosis.

Elimination of ESAT-6 and CFP-10 from a candidate vaccine against bovine tuberculosis impaired its protection efficacy in the BALBc mouse model.

Background: Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a zoonotic disease caused by Mycobacterium bovis that mainly affects cattle. Although vaccination is the most effective strategy to control bTB, it may interfere with the diagnosis of the infection. Therefore, ancillary tests to differentiate vaccinated from infected animals (DIVA) are essential in a cattle vaccination scenario. ESAT-6 and CFP-10 are the most promissory DIVA antigens. Method: In this study, we deleted esat6 and cfp10 genes from the M. bovis Δ mce2 live-attenuated vaccine candidate and evaluated its protection level against bTB in BALBc mice. Results: We found that the M. bovis strain mutant in mce2, esat-6 and cfp-10 failed to confer protection against virulent M. bovis challenge in a mouse model of tuberculosis. Conclusions: This result highlights the relevant role of ESAT-6 and CFP-10 in the induction of protective immune response against M. bovis infection and reveals the need of evaluating different strategies to compensate for the lack of these DIVA antigens in new vaccine formulations.

ERAP1 and PDE8A Are Downregulated in Cattle Protected against Bovine Tuberculosis.

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a zoonotic disease caused by Mycobacterium bovis that is responsible for significant economic losses worldwide. In spite of its relevance, the limited knowledge about the host immune responses that provide effective protection against the disease has long hampered the development of an effective vaccine. The identification of host proteins with an expression that correlates with protection against bTB would contribute to the understanding of the cattle defence mechanisms against M. bovis infection. In this study, we found that ERAP1 and PDE8A were downregulated in vaccinated cattle that were protected from experimental M. bovis challenge. Remarkably, both genes encode proteins that have been negatively associated with immune protection against bTB.

Role of the Mce1 transporter in the lipid homeostasis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is one of the leading causes of mortality throughout the world. Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of human tuberculosis, has developed several strategies involving proteins and other compounds known collectively as virulence factors to subvert human host defences and invade the human host. The Mce proteins are among these virulence-related proteins and are encoded by the mce1, mce2, mce3 and mce4 operons in the genome of M. tuberculosis. It has been proposed that these operons encode ABC-like lipid transporters; however, the nature of their substrates has only been revealed in the case of the Mce4 proteins. Here we found that the knockout of the mce1 operon alters the lipid profile of M. tuberculosis H37Rv and the uptake of palmitic acid. Thin layer chromatography and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis showed that the mce1 mutant accumulates more mycolic acids than the wild type and complemented strains. Interestingly, this accumulation of mycolic acid is exacerbated when bacteria are cultured in the presence of palmitic acid or arachidonic acid. These results suggest that the mce1 operon may serve as a mycolic acid re-importer.

Increased IL-17 expression is associated with pathology in a bovine model of tuberculosis.

The identification of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) biomarkers in specific stages of the disease will contribute to a better understanding of the immunopathology associated with tuberculosis and to improve the disease diagnosis and prognosis. The aim of this study was to understand the changing profile of the immune responses during the course of infection and to identify biomarkers associated with pathology. Here we describe the immune response developed in experimentally infected cattle with field Mycobacterium bovis strains. Blood samples were taken from each animal at different time points after M. bovis intratracheal infection and lymphocyte subset activation and cytokine mRNA expression were determined from peripheral blood mononuclear cells in response to purified protein derivative (PPDB). We found that CD4 and CD8 activation during the early stages of infection, together with IL-17 gene expression, were positively associated with pathology. The results of this study provide evidences of the role of IL-17 in the immunopathology of tuberculosis and support the use of IL-17 as a potential biomarker with predictive value of prognosis in bTB.

Knockout mutation of p27-p55 operon severely reduces replication of Mycobacterium bovis in a macrophagic cell line and survival in a mouse model of infection.

Integrity of p27-p55 operon has been demonstrated to be crucial for replication of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the main agent of human tuberculosis, in the mouse model of infection. However, the individual contribution of each gene of the operon for the virulence of pathogenic Mycobacterium spp. still remains unclear. The operon is formed by two genes, p27 and p55. p27 gene encodes a lipoprotein that binds triacylated glycolipids and modulates the host immune responses by inhibiting the MHC-II Ag processing. Besides, p55 encodes an efflux pump that, together with P27, is involved in resistance to drugs. In this study, we evaluated the individual contribution of P27 and P55 to the virulence of Mycobacterium bovis, the etiological agent for bovine tuberculosis. Knockout mutation of p27-p55 operon in M. bovis severely decreased the virulence of the bacteria when assessed in a progressive model of pulmonary tuberculosis in Balb/c mice. In addition, the mutant strain showed poor replication in a murine macrophagic cell line. Virulence and intracellular replication were only restored when the mutant strain was complemented with a copy of the whole operon. The reintroduction of p55 into the mutant strain partially restored the virulence of the bacteria while no complementation was achieved with p27 individual gene.