Concentration and pattern changes of porcine serum apolipoprotein A-I in four different infectious diseases

Apolipoprotein A-I (Apo A-I) is a major protein in lipid/lipoprotein metabolism and decreased serum levels have been observed in many species in response to inflammatory and infectious challenges. Little is known about the porcine homologue, therefore in this work we have characterized it through biochemical and proteomic techniques. In 2DE, porcine serum Apo A-I is found as three spots, the two more acidic ones corresponding to the mature protein, the more basic spot to the protein precursor. Despite high sequence coverage in LC-MS/MS, we did not find a sequence or PTM difference between the two mature protein species. Besides this biochemical characterization, we measured overall levels and relative species abundance of serum Apo A-I in four different viral and bacterial porcine infectious diseases. Lower overall amounts of Apo A-I were observed in Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli infections. In the 2DE protein pattern, an increase of the protein precursor together with a lower level of mature protein species were detected in the porcine circovirus type 2-systemic disease and S. typhimurium infection. These results reveal that both the porcine serum Apo A-I concentration and the species pattern are influenced by the nature of the infectious disease.