Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (Jun 2008)

Preliminary results in the immunodiagnosis of tuberculosis in children based on T cell responses to ESAT-6 and PPD antigens

  • Daniele SM Van-Lume,
  • Joelma R de Souza,
  • Wlademir G Melo,
  • Victor L Melo,
  • Marta ML Cabral,
  • Joakim C Rego,
  • Haiana C Schindler,
  • Frederico GC Abath,
  • Silvia ML Montenegro

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0074-02762008000400015
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 103, no. 4
pp. 401 – 404

Abstract

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The aim of this work was to study the difference in interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) production by T lymphocytes after early secretory antigen target 6 (ESAT-6) or purified protein derivate (PPD) stimulation in whole blood culture supernatants from children with suspected tuberculosis (TB) disease (n = 21), latent TB infection (n = 16) and negative controls (NC) (n = 22) from an endemic area in Brazil. The concentration of IFN-gamma (pg/ml) was measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay and the differences in the IFN-gamma levels for each group were compared and evaluated using an unpaired Student's t-test; p values 0.05) after PPD stimulation. The IFN-gamma assay using ESAT-6 as an antigenic stimulus has the potential to be used as a tool for the immunodiagnosis of early TB in children.

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