RESEARCH ARTICLE Comparative Proteomic Profiling of Ehrlichia ruminantium Pathogenic Strain and Its High- Passaged Attenuated Strain Reveals Virulence and Attenuation-Associated Proteins Isabel Marcelino1,2,3,4*, Miguel Ventosa1,2, Elisabete Pires2, Markus Müller5, a11111 Frédérique Lisacek5, Thierry Lefrançois6, Nathalie Vachiery3,4, Ana Varela Coelho2 1 Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica (iBET), Oeiras, Portugal, 2 Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (ITQB-UNL), Oeiras, Portugal, 3 CIRAD, UMR CMAEE, F-97170, Petit-Bourg, Guadeloupe, France, 4 INRA, UMR1309 CMAEE, F-34398, Montpellier, France, 5 Proteome Informatics, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB), Geneva, Switzerland, 6 CIRAD, UMR CMAEE, F-34398, Montpellier, France OPEN ACCESS *
[email protected] Citation: Marcelino I, Ventosa M, Pires E, Müller M, Lisacek F, Lefrançois T, et al. (2015) Comparative Proteomic Profiling of Ehrlichia ruminantium Abstract Pathogenic Strain and Its High-Passaged Attenuated Strain Reveals Virulence and Attenuation-Associated The obligate intracellular bacterium Ehrlichia ruminantium (ER) causes heartwater, a fatal Proteins. PLoS ONE 10(12): e0145328. doi:10.1371/ tick-borne disease in livestock. In the field, ER strains present different levels of virulence, journal.pone.0145328 limiting vaccine efficacy, for which the molecular basis remains unknown. Moreover, there Editor: Xue-jie Yu, University of Texas Medical are no genetic tools currently available for ER manipulation, thus limiting the knowledge of Branch, UNITED STATES the genes/proteins that are essential for ER pathogenesis and biology. As such, to identify Received: August 27, 2015 proteins and/or mechanisms involved in ER virulence, we performed the first exhaustive Accepted: December 1, 2015 comparative proteomic analysis between a virulent strain (ERGvir) and its high-passaged Published: December 21, 2015 attenuated strain (ERGatt).