Short communication: Proteomic characterization of tuberculin purified protein derivative from Mycobacterium bovis.

Bovine tuberculin purified protein derivative (bPPD) is used as an intradermal test (IT) reagent to detect bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in most countries. Identification of bPPD proteins is critical to understanding the immunological reaction of IT at the molecular level. While bPPD from the United Kingdom (UK) and Brazil (BR) have been recently defined at the proteomic level, bPPD from the Republic of Korea (KR) has not yet been analyzed. Here, bPPD KR proteome was examined for the first time. In total, 271 proteins were identified, including Mycobacterium bovis-specific proteins Mb0854c and Mb2898, and 42 known T cell antigens. On comparing with proteomes of bPPD UK and BR, 33 proteins were found to be common among all three bPPDs, of which 15 proteins were T cell antigens. M. bovis-specific antigens with T cell activity in bPPD may be novel candidates for use as alternatives to currently available bPPD in diagnostics.