Analysis of the serum peptidome associated with Toxoplasma gondii infection

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite that can cause severe disease in immunocompromised individuals and congenitally infected neonates. In order to determine whether serum peptide profile would reveal disease markers or allow determination of toxoplasmosis aggressiveness, mouse sera were collected from acutely infected, chronically infected and control subjects, and analyzed by using a quantitative label-free pepdomics approach (LC-MS/MS). Six hundred and seven endogenous peptides were identified among all the samples, with peptide profiling of difference that readily distinguished between acutely infected samples and other samples. Among these peptides detected in this study, 81 and 68 differentially expressed peptides (DEPs) were found in the acute