Proteomic study via a non-gel based approach of meningococcal outer membrane vesicle vaccine obtained from strain CU385: A road map for discovering new antigens

This work presents the results from a study of the protein composition of outer membrane vesicles from VA-MENGOC-BC® (Finlay Institute, Cuba), an available vaccine against serogroup B Neisseria meningitidis. Proteins were identified by means of SCAPE, a 2DE-free method for proteome studies. More than one hundred proteins were detected by tandem liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of fractions enriched in peptides devoid of histidine or arginine residues, providing a detailed description of the vaccine. A bioinformatic analysis of the identified components resulted in the identification of 31 outer membrane proteins and three conserved hypothetical proteins, allowing the cloning, expression, purification and immunological study of two of them (NMB0088 and NMB1796) as new antigens.