Application of proteomics for comparison of proteome of Neospora caninum and Toxoplasma gondii tachyzoites

Protein profiles of two isolates of Neospora caninum (KBA-2 and JPA1) and Toxoplasma gondii RH strain were investigated by proteomic approach. Approximately, 78% of protein spots on two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) profiles and 80% of antigen spots on 2-DE immunoblotting profiles were exhibited to share the same pI and M(r) between KBA-2 and JPA1 of N. caninum. On the other hand, a total of 30 antigen spots of T. gondii were recognized on 2-DE immunoblotting profile using rabbit antiserum against N. caninum KBA-2. A number of homologue proteins, such as heat shock protein 70, tubulin alpha- and beta-chain, putative protein disulfide isomerase, actin, enolase and 14-3-3 protein homologue are believed as the conserved proteins in both N. caninum and T. gondii. On the contrary, NcSUB1, NcGRA2 and NCDG1 (NcGRA7) might be the species-specific proteins for N. caninum tachyzoites. The present study showed that the high degree of similarity between N. caninum isolates (KBA-2 and JPA1), whereas large differences between N. caninum and T. gondii were noticed by proteome comparisons.