Cell-mediated immune responses of healthy laboratory volunteers to sonicate antigens prepared from the most prevalent strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from south India harboring a single copy of IS6110.
Priya Rajavelu; Sulochana D Das.
Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology; 2003; 10; 1149-1152.
Our restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) studies have shown that the most prevalent (40%) strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from south India contain a single copy of the IS6110 insertion sequence and are of importance in studying virulence and immunity. Sonicate antigens from seven such strains were used to study in vitro T-cell proliferation and gamma interferon (IFN- g ) and interleukin-12 (IL-12) secretion as markers of protective immunity in 25 healthy subjects positive for purified protein derivative (PPD). The standard PPD and heat-killed H37Rv antigens induced the maximum levels of T-cell proliferation and IFN- g secretion but low levels of IL-12. All sonicate antigens induced T-cell proliferation and IFN- g secretion with strong positive correlation. Our results suggest that sonicate antigens from the most prevalent and recent strains of M. tuberculosis from clinical isolates have the potential to induce T-cell activation and may lead to newer and specific antigens to be further characterized for diagnosis and vaccine development.
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