LEVELS OF CIRCULATING IGG ANTIBODIES AGAINST CFP10 AND ESAT6 PROTEINS DIFFERENTIATE ACTIVE TB PATIENTS AND RECENTLY INFECTED INDIVIDUALS FROM LATENTLY INFECTED SUBJECTS

AGUSTIN VITTI; ZUAZO ROCIO; ALEJANDRO CASTELLO; ESTEFANIA PERI IBAÑES; MARÍA PAULA MORELLI; LUCIA DONNOLLI; ANA BAZÁN; RITA ARMITANO; DOMINGO J. PALMERO; NANCY TATEOSIAN; IOVANNA JUAN L.; GARCIA VERONICA; AMIANO NICOLAS

Congreso; Reunión Conjunta SAIC ? SAI ? SAFIS; 2022

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the agent responsible for the tuberculosis disease (TB) has been historically one of the deadliest infectious human pathogens. Mtb is characterized by its capacity to enter into a dormancy state that allows it to persist in an individual for years. This latent condition makes direct detection of bacterial components difficult and results in a significant obstacle for diagnosis. We have previously generated a fusion protein (Fp) of CFP10 and ESAT6 antigens that can be used for detecting Mtb infected individuals in an IGRA test. We have also demonstrated that the antigen Rv2626c allows to discriminate individuals with an established latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) from tuberculosis patients (TBP), recently infected subjects (RI) and healthy controls (HC). Here, we analyzed levels of circulating IgG antibodies against Fp in these mentioned study groups. We used Fp to sensitize ELISA plates and measured IgG specific antibodies in plasma samples. We first observed that levels of IgG antibodies against ESAT6 and CFP10 could differentiate TBP and HC (D.O.TB = 0.71 ± 0.10; D.O.HC = 0.11 ± 0.03; ****p