In:
Clinical and Vaccine Immunology, American Society for Microbiology, Vol. 13, No. 2 ( 2006-02), p. 179-186
Abstract:
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is estimated to infect 80 to 100 million people annually, the majority of whom do not develop clinical tuberculosis (TB) but instead maintain the infection in a latent state. These individuals generally become positive in response to a tuberculin skin test and may develop clinical TB at a later date, particularly if their immune systems are compromised. Latently infected individuals are interesting for two reasons. First, they are an important reservoir of M. tuberculosis , which needs to be considered for TB control. Second, if detected prior to recrudescence of the disease, they represent a human population that is making a protective immune response to M. tuberculosis , which is very important for defining correlates of protective immunity. In this study, we show that while responsiveness to early secretory antigenic target 6 is a good marker for M. tuberculosis infection, a strong response to the 16-kDa Rv2031c antigen (HspX or α-crystallin) is largely restricted to latently infected individuals, offering the possibility of differential immunodiagnosis of, or therapeutic vaccination against, TB.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1556-6811
,
1556-679X
DOI:
10.1128/CVI.13.2.179-186.2006
Language:
English
Publisher:
American Society for Microbiology
Publication Date:
2006
detail.hit.zdb_id:
1496863-0
