Peptides and current methods on bovine tuberculosis diagnosis

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a respiratory disease caused by Mycobacterium bovis that mainly infects cattle and adversely affects animal health and the livestock economy. Additionally, bTB affects human health as a zoonotic disease. Therefore, implementing diagnostic tests and slaughter policies campaigns is a valuable strategy to control this disease. The tuberculin skin test (TST) and the interferon-gamma (IFN-) assay are applied as current ante-mortem bTB diagnostic approaches. In addition, the choice of antigens is critical for the bTB diagnostic technique. The sensitivity of currently TST tests range from 40 to 95%. Thus, available tests present limitations with methodology and/or antigen used. In this scenario, several antigens are derived from inactivated cells or proteins, although peptides have been increasingly studied and used due to their numerous advantages. From this perspective, this review provides an overall literature review of the current ante-mortem bTB diagnostic tests, their advantages and limitations, and the peptide antigens used to improve test performance.