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Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, March 2004, p. 280-286, Vol. 11, No. 2
1071-412X/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/CDLI.11.2.280-286.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Potential Serological Use of a Recombinant Protein That Is a Replica of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis Protein Found in the Urine of Infected Mice

Sandeep Mukherjee,¹ Nada Daifalla,¹ Yanni Zhang,² John Douglass,² Lisa Brooks,² Thomas Vedvick,² Raymond Houghton,² Steven G. Reed,^1,2 and Antonio Campos-Neto^1*

Infectious Disease Research Institute,¹ Corixa Corporation, Seattle, Washington²

Received 20 August 2003/ Returned for modification 29 October 2003/ Accepted 23 December 2003

The recent availability of numerous well-characterized Mycobacterium tuberculosis recombinant proteins has revived interest in the serological diagnosis of tuberculosis. Several promising results have been reported, particularly when more than one antigen is used in the test. However, thus far these antigens have not been used in routine diagnostic tests because they lack sufficient sensitivity. In addition, with the exception of one antigen, most recombinant M. tuberculosis proteins do not identify the majority of tuberculosis patients coinfected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Here, we report a newer M. tuberculosis protein that is a promising candidate for increasing the sensitivity of the serological tests, in particular for patients coinfected with HIV. The protein was found in the urine of mice during the early stages of infection with M. tuberculosis (10 to 14 days), thus suggesting that the antigen is abundantly released during the in vivo growth of the mycobacterium. Reverse genetics was used to produce the recombinant protein, which we named U1 (for urine protein 1). Using a conventional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), antibody to U1 could be detected in 60% of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis with no signs of coinfection with HIV (n = 83). Conversely, anti-U1 antibody was detected in 87% of the sera from tuberculosis patients coinfected with HIV (n = 47). Out of 12 HIV-infected nontuberculosis patients' sera, 9 did not react with U1 and three sera gave borderline ELISA signals (signal/cutoff of 1.75). These results suggest that the high efficiency of U1 in identifying tuberculosis patients coinfected with HIV may be related to abundant release of this protein during the initial phase of the HIV coinfection. The immediate availability of the antigen at a time point in which the patient's immune system is still competent would lead to a secondary immune response to U1 that persists for months in the patient's serum.

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* Corresponding author. Present address: The Forsyth Institute, 140 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115-3799. Phone: (617) 262-5200. Fax: (617) 262-4021. E-mail: acampos{at}forsyth.org.

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Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, March 2004, p. 280-286, Vol. 11, No. 2
1071-412X/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/CDLI.11.2.280-286.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

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