Airways infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is contained mostly by T cell responses, however, Mtb has developed evasion mechanisms which affect antigen presenting cell (APC) maturation/recruitment delaying the onset of Ag-specific T cell responses. Hypothetically, bypassing the natural infection routes by delivering antigens directly to APCs may overcome the pathogen's naturally evo...

OBJECTIVES To investigate whether mycobacterial antigen-induced cytokine secretions are helpful in detecting Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection in a cohort of HIV-infected patients living in a country with a high burden of Mtb and HIV infections, and to determine their predictive value for the development of tuberculosis (TB)-associated immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome. DES...

BACKGROUND The 10-kDa culture filtrate protein (CFP10) and 6-kDa early-secreted target antigen (ESAT-6) play important roles in mycobacterial virulence and pathogenesis through a 1:1 complex formation (CFP10/ESAT-6 protein, CE protein), which have been used in discriminating TB patients from BCG-vaccinated individuals. The B-cell epitopes of CFP10 and ESAT-6 separately have been analyzed before...

The chimeric protein that relies on the T-cell epitopes of antigen 85B (Ag85B) and the 6-kDa early secreted antigen target (ESAT-6) has been demonstrated to augment the Th1 immune response. In this study, we developed a recombinant Mycobacterium bovis BCG (rBCG) strain that secretes the chimeric protein of Ag85B and ESAT-6 (rBCG-A(N)-E-A(C)). Immunization with this rBCG strain induced stronger ...

Human and bovine tuberculosis have long been detected by skin testing with purified protein derivative (PPD), a complex mix of partly denatured mycobacterial antigens with suboptimal specificity. In the present study, skin tests based on ESAT-6, a recombinantly produced antigen highly specific for tuberculosis infection, were investigated. Although ESAT-6 was strongly recognized in vitro and in...

BACKGROUND One of the most widely used methods to detect tuberculosis (TB) infection is the tuberculin skin test (TST). The completion of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) genome sequence has led to identification of several antigens that can be utilized for accurate diagnosis and control of TB. The aim of this study was to purify the recombinant M. tuberculosis antigens for the eval...

OBJECTIVES Tuberculosis (TB) is still one of the problematic infectious diseases in developing countries, especially in Iran. In the present study, we applied ribosome display technique to select single chain variable fragments (scFvs) specific for the 6-kDa early secretory antigenic target (ESAT-6) antigen of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from a mouse scFv library. MATERIALS AND METHODS The gen...

T cell responses to ESAT-6 and culture filtrate protein 10 (CFP-10), antigens expressed by Mycobacterium tuberculosis but not by M. bovis bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), were found to discriminate reliably between infection with M. tuberculosis and BCG vaccination. Because the esat-6 and cfp-10 genes occur in M. kansasii and M. marinum, T cell responses to ESAT-6 and CFP-10 were investigated in ...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis is a disease with high morbidity, caused mainly by Mycobaterium tuberculosis (M.tb.). DNA vaccines show a promising future due to their unique advantages over conventional methods. The early-secreted antigen target (ESAT)-6 and culture filtrate protein (CFP)-10 of M.tb. antigens have been identified as vaccine candidates against Mycobacteria and used as subunit vaccines,...