Enhancing the sequence coverage of nanodiamond-extracted early secretory proteins from the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex

Anal Methods. 2024 Jun 6;16(22):3464-3474. doi: 10.1039/d4ay00314d.

Abstract

The unambiguous identification of protein species requires high sequence coverage. In this study, we successfully improved the sequence coverage of early secretory 10 kDa cell filtrate protein (CFP-10) and 6 kDa early secretory antigenic target (ESAT-6) proteins from the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) in broth culture media with the use of the 4-chloro-α-cyanocinnamic acid (Cl-CCA) matrix. Conventional matrices, α-cyano-hydroxy-cinnamic acid (CHCA) and 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB), were also used for comparison. After nanodiamond (ND) extraction, the sequence coverage of the CFP-10 protein was 87% when CHCA and DHB matrices were used, and the ESAT-6 protein was not detected. On the other hand, the sequence coverage for ND-extracted CFP-10 and ESAT-6 could reach 94% and 100%, respectively, when the Cl-CCA matrix was used and with the removal of interference from bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein and α-crystallin (ACR) protein. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) was also adopted to analyze the protein mass spectra. A total of 6 prominent ion signals were observed, including ESAT-6 protein peaks at mass-to-charge ratios (m/z) of ∼7931, ∼7974, ∼9768, and ∼9813 and CFP-10 protein peaks at m/z of ∼10 100 and ∼10 660. The ESAT-6 ion signals were always detected concurrently with CFP-10 ion signals, but CFP-10 ion signals could be detected alone without the ESAT-6 ion signals. Furthermore, the newly found ESAT-6 peaks were also confirmed using a Mag-Beads-Protein G kit with an ESAT-6 antibody to capture the ESAT-6 protein, which was also consistent with the sequence coverage analysis.

MeSH terms

  • Antigens, Bacterial* / chemistry
  • Antigens, Bacterial* / isolation & purification
  • Bacterial Proteins* / chemistry
  • Mycobacterium tuberculosis* / chemistry
  • Nanodiamonds* / chemistry
  • Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization / methods

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Nanodiamonds
  • Antigens, Bacterial
  • ESAT-6 protein, Mycobacterium tuberculosis
  • CFP-10 protein, Mycobacterium tuberculosis