SWATH-based Comparative Proteomic Analysis of the Mycobacterium bovis BCG-Korea Strain

A derivative of Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) has been used for the preparation of tuberculosis vaccines. To establish a Korean tuberculosis vaccine derived from BCG-Pasteur $1173P_2$, genome sequencing of a BCG-Korea strain was completed by Joung and coworkers. A comparison analysis of the genome sequences of the BCG-Pasteur $1173P_2$ and BCG-Korea strains showed marginal increases in the total genome length (~0.05%) and the number of genes (~4%) in the BCG-Korea genome. However, how the genomic changes affect the BCG-Korea protein expression levels remains unknown. Here, we provide evidence of the proteomic alterations in the BCG-Korea strain by using a SWATH-based mass spectrometric approach (Sequential Window Acquisition of all THeoretical mass spectra). Twenty BCG proteins were selected by top-rank identification in the BCG proteome analysis and the proteins were quantified by the SWATH method. Thirteen of 20 proteins showing significant changes were enough to discriminate between the two BCG proteomes. The SWATH method is very straightforward and provides a promising approach owing to its strong reliability and reproducibility during the proteomic analysis.