Serological expression cloning and immunological evaluation of MTB48, a novel Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigen.

ABSTRACT: Improved diagnostics are needed for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, especially for patients with smear-negative disease. To address this problem, we have screened M. tuberculosis (H37Rv and Erdman strains) genomic expression libraries with pooled sera from patients with extrapulmonary disease and with sera from patients with elevated reactivity with M. tuberculosis lysate. Both serum pools were reactive with clones expressing a recombinant protein referred to here as MTB48. The genomic sequence of the resulting clones was identical to that of the M. tuberculosis H37Rv isolate and showed 99% identity to the Mycobacterium bovis and M. bovis BCG isolate sequences. The genomic location of this sequence is 826 bp upstream of a region containing the esat-6 gene that is deleted in th

SUBMITTER: Lodes MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC88174 | biostudies-literature | 2001 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature