Conserved alanine rich protein Rv3878 in Mycobacterium tuberculosis contains sequence polymorphisms

Yi Jiang; Li Wan; Zhijian Zhang; Haican Liu; Hui Pang; Wen Zhang; Xiuqin Zhao; Haiyin Wang; Guilian Li; Chen Chen; Biao Kan; Kanglin Wan

doi:10.1016/j.tube.2014.02.002

Conserved alanine rich protein Rv3878 in Mycobacterium tuberculosis contains sequence polymorphisms

Tuberculosis (Edinb). 2014 May;94(3):245-51. doi: 10.1016/j.tube.2014.02.002. Epub 2014 Feb 12.

Authors

Yi Jiang¹, Li Wan², Zhijian Zhang³, Haican Liu², Hui Pang⁴, Wen Zhang², Xiuqin Zhao², Haiyin Wang², Guilian Li², Chen Chen², Biao Kan⁵, Kanglin Wan⁶

Affiliations

¹ National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Beijing 102206, China; Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Hangzhou 310003, China. Electronic address: jiangyi@icdc.cn.
² National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Beijing 102206, China; Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Hangzhou 310003, China.
³ Respiratory Diseases Department of Nanlou, Chinese People's Liberation Army General Hospital, 28# Fuxing Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100853, China.
⁴ Immunology Department, Changzhi Medical College, Shanxi, China.
⁵ National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Beijing 102206, China; Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Hangzhou 310003, China. Electronic address: kanbiao@icdc.cn.
⁶ National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Beijing 102206, China; Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Hangzhou 310003, China. Electronic address: wankanglin@icdc.cn.

PMID: 24674998
DOI: 10.1016/j.tube.2014.02.002

Abstract

Host immune pressure and associated parasite immune evasion are key features of host-pathogen co-evolution. A previous study showed that human T cell epitopes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are evolutionarily hyperconserved and thus it was deduced that M. tuberculosis lacks antigenic variation and immune evasion. Here, we selected 162 clinical M. tuberculosis complex (MTBC) isolates from China, amplified gene encoding Rv3878 and compared the sequences. The results showed that Rv3878, a conserved hypothetical alanine rich protein, is not conserved in M. tuberculosis strains and there are polymorphisms existing in the protein. The large number of amino acid changes in its T cell epitopes may reflect ongoing immune evasion.

Keywords: Immune evasion; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Rv3878.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Alanine / genetics*
Alanine / metabolism
Amino Acid Sequence / genetics
Antigens, Bacterial / genetics*
Antigens, Bacterial / metabolism
Conserved Sequence / genetics
Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / genetics
Gene Deletion
Humans
Immune Evasion / genetics*
Mutagenesis, Insertional / genetics
Mutation / genetics
Mycobacterium tuberculosis / genetics*
Polymorphism, Genetic / genetics*

Substances

Antigens, Bacterial
Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte
TB27.4 protein, Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Alanine