BACKGROUND HIV-associated immune defects inhibit tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis, promote development of extrapulmonary TB and paucibacillary pulmonary TB cases with atypical radiographic features, and increase TB relapse rates. We therefore assessed the diagnostic performance of a novel assay that directly quantitates serum levels of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) virulence factor 10-kDa cul...

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...

The cell-mediated immune response, with its shift in favour of type-1 over type-2 T-helper cell immune response, is generally regarded as essential to protection against mycobacterial infections. The aim of this study was to evaluate the protective potential of two multicomponent subunit vaccines (MSV-1 and MSV-2) against tuberculosis (TB) based on human immune recognition. MSV-1 consisted of f...

BACKGROUND New tools are required to improve tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis and treatment, including enhanced ability to compare new treatment strategies. The ELISPOT assay uses Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific antigens to produce a precise quantitative readout of the immune response to pathogen. We hypothesized that TB patients in The Gambia would have reduced ELISPOT counts after successful t...

Current efforts are aimed at optimizing the protective efficacy of Mycobacterium bovis BCG by the use of vaccine combinations. We have recently demonstrated that the protection afforded by BCG alone is enhanced by vaccinating cattle with a combination of vaccines comprising BCG and a protein tuberculosis vaccine, namely, culture filtrate proteins (CFPs) from M. bovis plus an adjuvant. In the cu...

BACKGROUND Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) die in sight-threatening eye diseases. Imaging RGCs in humans is not currently possible and proof of principle in experimental models is fundamental for future development. Our objective was to quantify RGC density and retinal thickness following optic nerve transection in transgenic mice expressing cyan fluorescent protein (CFP) under control of the Thy...

In chapter 10 migration is described in terms of double focussing. In chapter 11 focussing in emission is used to synthesize common focus point gathers (CFP gathers). By comparing aCFPgather with its related focussing operator velocity errors can be detected and the focussing operator can be corrected (Berkhout and Rietveld (1994), Rietveld and Berkhout (1994) , Berkhout (1992), Rietveld and Th...

Cross-reactive responses elicited by exposure to nontuberculous mycobacteria often confound the interpretation of antemortem tests for Mycobacterium bovis infection of cattle. The use of specific proteins (e.g., ESAT-6, CFP-10, and MPB83), however, generally enhances the specificity of bovine tuberculosis tests. While genes for these proteins are absent from many nontuberculous mycobacteria, th...

ESAT-6, an abundantly secreted protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) is an important virulence factor, inactivation of which leads to reduced virulence of M. tuberculosis. ESAT-6 alone, or in complex with its chaperone CFP-10 (ESAT-6:CFP-10), is known to modulate host immune responses; however, the detailed mechanisms are not well understood. The structure of ESAT-6 or ESAT-6:...