TITLE:
Interferon-gamma ELISPOT for the screening and diagnosis of latent tuberculosis infection in healthy population of China
AUTHORS:
Yi Peng, Fangfang Yang, Lin Zhou, Meigui Zhao, Yan Li, Yuhong Huang, Juan Wang, Lirong Huang, Dan Xie, Zhiquan Tu, Weiling Lin, Jinhong Liu, Qiu Zhong, Xiaomin Lai
KEYWORDS:
Latent TB Infection (LTBI); Detection; IFN-γ ELISPOT; Healthy Population of China
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Bioscience and Biotechnology,
Vol.3 No.3,
June
21,
2012
ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was to analyze the combination of three kinds of in-house IFN-γ ELISPOT using peptide A53 and peptide mixtures (E6 + E7 and E6 + E7 + C14) with tuberculin skin test (TST) to detect latent TB infection (LTBI) in China. A total of 788 healthy people were recruited and analyzed by three kinds of IFN-g ELISPOT, 581 of them had TST results, of which 147 samples were also compared with the T- SPOT.TB test. The positive detection rates for T- SPOT.TB and three kinds of IFN-γ ELISPOT with A53, E6 + E7 and E6 + E7 + C14 were 14.28% (21/147), 29.43% (171/581), 23.24% (135/581) and 28.40% (165/581), respectively. These results were significantly lower than the positive TST results, which were positive in 82.99% (122/147) and 75.73% (440/ 581), respectively. The positive detection rates of three kinds of IFN-γ ELISPOT (31.60%, 26.65% and 32.11% in 788 cases, respectively) could better reflect over 40.00% of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection rate in China. Detection rates between contacts and non-contacts by three kinds of IFN-γ ELIS-POT were not significantly different (p > 0.05). It can be seen that the three kinds of in-house IFN-γ ELIS- POT might be used as a complementary tool of T- SPOT.TB for detecting LTBI in the healthy population of China.