Protein targets for preventative measures and diagnostics of Mycoplasma bovis from North American bison and cattle

Authors: Wynn, Emily; BROWNE, ANDREW - Animal And Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS); Clawson, Michael - Mike

Submitted to: Research Workers in Animal Diseases Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/23/2022
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Objective: Mycoplasma bovis is an economically important pathogen of cattle and bison. In cattle, Mycoplasma is a production disease causing mastitis, arthritis, and pneumonia. Bison have a different clinical presentation, with pneumonia and polyarthritis leading to high case fatality rates. Because Mycoplasma species lack a cell wall and have adapted to intracellular invasion and replication within host cells, many antibiotic treatments are ineffective. In this study we used existing sequencing data of North American M. bovis strains isolated from cattle and bison to compare the sequence diversity of proteins known or suspected to be outer membrane, extracellular, or immunogenic. Methods: Unassembled sequencing reads from one hundred and fifteen M. bovis strains were downloaded from the NCBI Sequence Read Archive and assembled into contigs with Spades. Additionally, twenty-five complete M. bovis genomes were downloaded from Genbank. The complete genomes and assembled contigs were annotated with DFAST and core and pan genome analysis was performed using the bioinformatic software package EDGAR. Predicted or known membrane, extracellular, or immunogenic proteins of M. bovis were identified from the literature and compared at the community level. Epitope binding efficiencies of these proteins to bovine MHC Class I were predicted with NetMHCpan. Results: The majority of the proteins examined in this study are highly conserved at the sequence level, including at the sites of predicted epitope binding with bovine MHC Class I. Protein variants were not found to be host species specific. Despite the high sequence conservation, proteins with differences in predicted epitope sequences and binding strength with bovine MHC Class I were identified. Conclusions: The high conservation of protein sequences across the population of North American M. bovis samples and the lack of host specificity among protein variants and their predicted epitope sequences provide opportunities for the development of preventive mitigation measures and new diagnostic methods.