International Journal of Molecular Sciences (Nov 2022)

Revealing the Changes in Saliva and Serum Proteins of Pigs with Meningitis Caused by Streptococcus Suis: A Proteomic Approach

  • María José López-Martínez,
  • Anđelo Beletić,
  • Josipa Kuleš,
  • Dina Rešetar-Maslov,
  • Ivana Rubić,
  • Vladimir Mrljak,
  • Edgar Garcia Manzanilla,
  • Elena Goyena,
  • Silvia Martínez-Subiela,
  • José Joaquín Cerón,
  • Alberto Muñoz-Prieto

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms232213700
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 23, no. 22
p. 13700

Abstract

Read online

Meningitis due to Streptococcus suis causes high mortality and morbidity on pig farms and has increasing zoonotic potential worldwide. Saliva proteome analysis would potentially be useful in elucidating pathophysiological changes and mining for new biomarkers to diagnose and monitor S. suis infection. The objective of this study was to investigate the changes in the salivary and serum proteome profile of piglets with meningitis. The LC-MS/MS TMT proteomic approach was used to analyze saliva and serum samples from 20 male piglets: 10 with meningitis and 10 healthy. In saliva, 11 proteins had higher and 10 had lower relative abundance in piglets with meningitis. The proteins with the highest relative abundance were metavinculin (VCL) and desmocollin-2 (DSC2). Adenosine deaminase (ADA) was selected for validation using a spectrophotometric assay and demonstrated excellent performance in the differentiation between healthy and pigs with meningitis due to S. suis. In serum, the most protruding changes occurred for one SERPIN and haptoglobin (HP). In saliva and serum, the highest number of proteins with altered abundance were linked, via the enrichment analysis, with platelet and neutrophil pathways. Overall, meningitis caused by S. suis resulted in specific proteome changes in saliva and serum, reflecting different pathophysiological mechanisms, and marking new potential biomarkers for this infection.

Keywords