@article{22671,
  keywords = {Adult, Africa, Antigens, Bacterial, Asia, Bacterial Proteins, Endemic Diseases, Female, Humans, Interferon-gamma, leprosy, Male, Middle Aged, Mycobacterium leprae},
  author = {Bobosha K and Ploeg-van Schip JJ and Zewdie M and Sapkota BR and Hagge D and Franken K and Inbiale W and Aseffa A and Ottenhoff T and Geluk A},
  title = {Immunogenicity of Mycobacterium leprae unique antigens in leprosy endemic populations in Asia and Africa.},
  abstract = {<p>Ongoing transmission of leprosy is evident from the stable disease incidence in high burden areas. Tools for early detection of Mycobacterium leprae (M. leprae) infection, particularly in sub-clinically infected individuals, are urgently required to reduce transmission. Following the sequencing of the M. leprae genome, many M. leprae-unique candidate proteins have been identified, several of which have been tested for induction of M. leprae specific T cell responses in different leprosy endemic areas. In this study, 21 M. leprae-unique proteins and 10 peptide pools covering the complete sequence of five M. leprae-unique proteins (ML0576, ML1989, ML1990, ML2283, and ML2567) were evaluated in 160 individuals in Nepal and Ethiopia. These included: tuberculoid and borderline tuberculoid (TT/BT), borderline borderline and borderline lepromatous (BB/BL) leprosy patients; healthy household contacts (HHC); tuberculosis (TB) patients and endemic controls (EC). Immunogenicity of the proteins was determined by IFN-gamma secretion via stimulation of PBMC in 6 days lymphocyte stimulation tests (LST) or in whole blood assays (WBA). In LST, BB/BL patients (40%) responded to ML0573 and ML1601 whereas ML1604 was most immunogenic in TT/BT (35%) and HHC (36%). Additionally, significant numbers of EC displayed IFN-gamma production in response to ML0573 (54%), ML1601 (50%) and ML1604 (54%). TB patients on the other hand, hardly responded to any of the proteins except for ML1989. Comparison of IFN-gamma responses to ML0121, ML0141 and ML0188 for TT/BT patients showed specific increase in diluted 6 days WBA compared to the undiluted 24 hours WBA, whereas EC showed a reduced response in the diluted WBA, which may indicate detection of disease-specific responses in the 6 days WBA. In summary, identification of multiple M. leprae proteins inducing M. leprae-specific T cell responses in groups at high risk of developing leprosy may contribute to improve early detection for M. leprae infection.</p>},
  year = {2011},
  journal = {Leprosy review},
  volume = {82},
  pages = {445-58},
  month = {2011 Dec},
  publisher = {LEPRA Health in Action},
  address = {Colchester},
  issn = {0305-7518},
  url = {https://leprosyreview.org/article/82/4/44-5458},
  language = {eng},
}