Effective antigens of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Abstract:

Tuberculosis (TB), the second (after COVID-19) deadliest infectious killer, is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). COVID-19 pandemic has shown devastating effect on the diagnosis and treatment of TB, posing a huge challenge to the ending of TB. Thus, early diagnosis and treatment is still the key to prevention and control of TB spread. The accurate diagnosis of TB depends on the specificity of MTB antigen and the specificity and sensitivity of detection techniques. Therefore, it is urgent to develop highly specific antigens and detection techniques. The advanced proteogenomics and mass spectrometry make it easy to detect known or new MTB-specific antigens from clinical body fluids and tissue samples and monitor the dynamic expression of antigen during treatment. Among 4 008 annotated genes of MTB in NCBI (NC_000 962.3), more than 140 known genes have been listed as potential antigens for TB diagnosis, while only a few annotated antigens have been used in the screening and auxiliary diagnosis of TB, which are still far from the WHO diagnostic standards. In this paper, we reviewed the reported antigens of MTB and the potential of screening specific neoantigens based on proteogenomic technologies for better understanding them and developing new efficient antigens.