Award details

Proteomic signatures of bovine tuberculosis

Reference	BBS/E/I/00001176
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Bernardo Villarreal-Ramos
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	The Pirbright Institute
Department	The Pirbright Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	26,389
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/10/2004
End date	30/09/2007
Duration	36 months

Abstract

Mycobacterium bovis, the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis, remains a significant health problem worldwide and represents an important animal welfare and economic burden in developed countries. The reasons for the current resurgence of bovine TB in parts of the UK remain unclear. However, the problem has been compounded by limitations in disease diagnosis. The current tuberculin skin test only detects bovine TB some weeks after infection and takes at least 48 hours to yield an answer. Additionally, it frequently produces false positives that further complicate management of an already difficult situation in the field. The aim of the proposed studies is to explore the potential of a powerful new clinical diagnostic strategy that is already shows considerable promise in cancer diagnostics. Using this approach, plasma samples from cattle with confirmed bovine TB or from matched healthy controls, will be applied to a hydrophobic capture surface (MassPrep chips) and analysed by matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). The resulting data will be used as a training set to extract m/z values that in combination discriminate between samples from healthy and diseased cattle. The candidate proteomic signatures thus derived will be tested against MS data derived from masked plasma samples to determine the degree of specificity and selectivity that can be obtained. In particular, we wish to test their ability to detect early stage TB and to discriminate between bovine TB and other infectious diseases of cattle. The final stage will be to identify the components that give rise to diagnostic m/z values in optimised proteomic signatures, using MS/MS analysis. The use of proteomic signatures, together with the speed and high throughput nature of MALDI-TOF MS, offers a powerful new approach for the detection of bovine TB and is likely to have many other applications in the diagnosis of infectious disease.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Animal Sciences (AS)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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