posted on 2020-11-03, 16:41authored byClemens Hermann, Leshern Karamchand, Jonathan M. Blackburn, Nelson C. Soares
The
World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that Mycobacterium
tuberculosis, the most pathogenic mycobacterium species to
humans, has infected up to a quarter of the world’s population,
with the occurrence of multidrug-resistant strains on the rise. Research
into the detailed composition of the cell envelope proteome in mycobacteria
over the last 20 years has formed a key part of the efforts to understand
host–pathogen interactions and to control the current tuberculosis
epidemic. This is due to the great importance of the cell envelope
proteome during infection and during the development of antibiotic
resistance as well as the search of surface-exposed proteins that
could be targeted by therapeutics and vaccines. A variety of experimental
approaches and mycobacterial species have been used in proteomic studies
thus far. Here we provide for the first time an extensive summary
of the different approaches to isolate the mycobacterial cell envelope,
highlight some of the limitations of the studies performed thus far,
and comment on how the recent advances in membrane proteomics in other
fields might be translated into the field of mycobacteria to provide
deeper coverage.