TY - JOUR T1 - QuantiFERON-TB performance enhanced by novel <em>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</em>-specific antigens JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 660 LP - 664 DO - 10.1183/13993003.01015-2015 VL - 47 IS - 2 AU - Monica Losi AU - Ashley J. Knights AU - Francesca Mariani AU - Alfonso M. Altieri AU - Gregorino Paone AU - Andre G. Loxton AU - Novel N. Chegou AU - John Kenneth AU - Mario G. Alma AU - Vittorio Colizzi AU - Gerhard Walzl AU - Cesare Saltini AU - Jeff Boyle AU - Massimo Amicosante Y1 - 2016/02/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/47/2/660.abstract N2 - One of the most significant developments in the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) infection has been the introduction of whole-blood based interferon-γ release assays (IGRAs) [1–3]. IGRAs, commercially available as QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube test (QFT) (QIAGEN, Germantown, MD, USA) and T-SPOT.TB (Oxford Immunotec Ltd, Abingdon, UK), are based on the detection of a T-cell immune response towards RD1 antigens (ESAT-6 and CFP-10), with the addition of the TB7.7 antigen for the QFT only [1]. IGRAs are endowed with great specificity, as the antigens used are almost exclusively expressed by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) complex, but not Mycobacterium bovis bacille Calmette–Guerin (BCG) [1–3]. However, the diagnostic sensitivity of IGRAs can be improved (75–85% in HIV-negative active TB patients) especially in countries with a high TB burden [3].Novel Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigens from macrophage infection model improve performance of QuantiFERON-TB http://ow.ly/TaqTOWe thank Giuseppe Liotta (Dept of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy) for the support with data and statistics analysis of the study results, and Graham Lord (Dept of Experimental Immunobiology, King's College, London, UK) for the critical reading and editing of the manuscript. ER -