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Identification of Antigens Specific to Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria: The Mce Family of Proteins as a Target of T Cell Immune Responses

Checkley, AM; Wyllie, DH; Scriba, TJ; Golubchik, T; Hill, AV; Hanekom, WA; McShane, H (2011) Identification of Antigens Specific to Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria: The Mce Family of Proteins as a Target of T Cell Immune Responses. PLOS ONE, 6 (10). e26434-e26434 (10). ISSN 1932-6203 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0026434
SGUL Authors: Checkley, Anna Mary

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Abstract

The lack of an effective TB vaccine hinders current efforts in combating the TB pandemic. One theory as to why BCG is less protective in tropical countries is that exposure to non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) reduces BCG efficacy. There are currently several new TB vaccines in clinical trials, and NTM exposure may also be relevant in this context. NTM exposure cannot be accurately evaluated in the absence of specific antigens; those which are known to be present in NTM and absent from M. tuberculosis and BCG. We therefore used a bioinformatic pipeline to define proteins which are present in common NTM and absent from the M. tuberculosis complex, using protein BLAST, TBLASTN and a short sequence protein BLAST to ensure the specificity of this process. We then assessed immune responses to these proteins, in healthy South Africans and in patients from the United Kingdom and United States with documented exposure to NTM. Low level responses were detected to a cluster of proteins from the mammalian cell entry family, and to a cluster of hypothetical proteins, using ex vivo ELISpot and a 6 day proliferation assay. These early findings may provide a basis for characterising exposure to NTM at a population level, which has applications in the field of TB vaccine design as well as in the development of diagnostic tests.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Copyright Checkley et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Keywords: Antigens, Bacterial, BCG Vaccine, Bacterial Proteins, Bacterial Vaccines, Computational Biology, Great Britain, Humans, Mycobacterium, South Africa, T-Lymphocytes, Tuberculosis Vaccines, United States, Science & Technology, Multidisciplinary Sciences, Science & Technology - Other Topics, MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES, PREDICTED SECRETED ANTIGENS, BOVIS BCG VACCINATION, ENVIRONMENTAL MYCOBACTERIA, COMPARATIVE GENOMICS, DIAGNOSTIC REAGENTS, INTERFERON-GAMMA, CALMETTE-GUERIN, TUBERCULOSIS, EFFICACY, AVIUM
SGUL Research Institute / Research Centre: Academic Structure > Infection and Immunity Research Institute (INII)
Journal or Publication Title: PLOS ONE
ISSN: 1932-6203
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Dates:
DateEvent
25 October 2011Published
Web of Science ID: WOS:000296517000017
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URI: https://openaccess.sgul.ac.uk/id/eprint/103317
Publisher's version: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0026434

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