Immunogenicity of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis PPE55 (Rv3347c) protein during incipient and clinical tuberculosis.

Clinical tuberculosis (TB), whether noncavitary or cavitary, is the late stage of a chronic disease process, since Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a slowly growing organism. Our studies have shown that the profiles of antigenic proteins expressed by the in vivo bacteria that elicit antibodies differ in cavitary and noncavitary TB. To gain insight into antigenic proteins expressed during incipient, subclinical TB, an expression library of M.