In silico identification of potential antigenic proteins and promiscuous CTL epitopes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Cell-mediated immunity is critical for the control of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. We hypothesized that those proteins of M. tuberculosis (MTB) that do not have homologs in humans as well as human gut flora, would mount a good antigenic response in man, and employed a bioinformatics approach to identify MTB antigens capable of inducing a robust cell-mediated immune response in humans.