Mycobacterium tuberculosis epitope-specific interferon-gamma production in healthy Brazilians reactive and non-reactive to tuberculin skin test

• Autor(a) principal: Maciel da Silva, Bosco Christiano [UNIFESP]
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Outros Autores: Rios Grassi, Maria Fernanda, Coutinho, Raimundo, Moreira Mascarenhas, Rita Elizabeth, Olavarria, Viviana Nilla, Coutinho-Borgo, Adriana [UNIFESP], Kalil, Jorge [UNIFESP], Cunha-Neto, Edecio [UNIFESP], Fonseca, Simone Goncalves [UNIFESP]
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNIFESP
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.unifesp.br/handle/11600/38486; http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0074-0276140193
• topic: Mycobacterium tuberculosis; epitopes; IFN-gamma ELISPOT; latent tuberculosis; Mantoux tuberculin skin test

The interferon (IFN)-gamma response to peptides can be a useful diagnostic marker of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) latent infection. We identified promiscuous and potentially protective CD4(+) T-cell epitopes from the most conserved regions of MTB antigenic proteins by scanning the MTB antigenic proteins GroEL2, phosphate-binding protein 1 precursor and 19 kDa antigen with the TEPITOPE algorithm. Seven peptide sequences predicted to bind to multiple human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DR molecules were synthesised and tested with IFN-gamma enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assays using peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 16 Mantoux tuberculin skin test (TST)-positive and 16 TST-negative healthy donors. Eighty-eight percent of TST-positive donors responded to at least one of the peptides, compared to 25% of TST-negative donors. Each individual peptide induced IFN-gamma production by PBMCs from at least 31% of the TST-positive donors. the magnitude of the response against all peptides was 182 +/- 230 x 10(6) IFN-gamma spot forming cells (SFC) among TST-positive donors and 36 +/- 62 x 10(6) SFC among TST-negative donors (p = 0.007). the response to GroEL2 (463-477) was only observed in the TST-positive group. This combination of novel MTB CD4 T-cell epitopes should be tested in a larger cohort of individuals with latent tuberculosis (TB) to evaluate its potential to diagnose latent TB and it may be included in ELISPOT-based IFN-gamma assays to identify individuals with this condition.