Immunogenetics of Tuberculosis

SETTING: Two sample panels: (i) twenty pulmonary tuberculosis (TBp) patients and ten healthy subjects (HS) from a country with low incidence of TB (Italy) and (ii) forty-seven TBp patients and 26 HS from a country with high incidence of TB (Morocco). OBJECTIVE: To identify a combination of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) peptides useful for the serodiagnosis of active TBp. METHODS: Fifty-seven B-cell epitopes peptides of Mtb were evaluated by immunoenzymatic assay and the data were analyzed using logistic regression analysis and Random Forest method. RESULTS: The best discriminating peptide between TBp patients and HS from the sample of the country with low incidence of TB has been the 23 amino acid peptide of the Rv3878 protein. Thus, the sensitivity and specificity was 65 % and 100 %, respectively. In contrast, the same peptide showed 47% and 100% as sensitivity and specificity respectively in the country with high incidence of TB. In addition, the best peptides combination was a pool of nine peptides which showed a sensitivity of 70.2% and a specificity of 100% in the country with high incidence of TB. CONCLUSIONS: The 9-peptides pool can be useful in identifying patients with active TBp