TABLE 3.

Association of the tuberculin-boosted antibody responses to M. bovis antigens with pathology/bacteriology findings in experimentally infected reindeer

Animal	Results for antibodies in MAPIA			Pathology and bacteriology results
	Band intensitya	No. of bands	MAPIA scoreb	Gross lesions	Culture from tissues	No. of positive tissuesc	Pathology scored
121	+++	4	7	Positive	Positive	3	5
126	+++	6	9	Positive	Positive	5	7
128e	+++	4	7	Positive	Positive	4	6
120	++	4	6	Negative	Negative	1	1
131	++	4	6	Negative	Negative	1	1
133	++	4	6	Negative	Negative	1	1
134	++	3	5	Negative	Negative	3	3
135	++	3	5	Negative	Negative	0	0
125	+/−	2	2.5	Negative	Negative	2	2
127	+	4	5	Positive	Positive	1	3
136	+	3	4	Negative	Negative	0	0

^aMagnitude of antibody response to most seroreactive antigen(s) detected by MAPIA 2 to 4 weeks after skin testing performed 3 months postinfection was scored visually as strong (+++), moderate (++), weak (+), or very weak (+/−).

^bMAPIA score is the band intensity (e.g., +++ represents 3 and +/− represents 0.5) plus number of bands.

^cAt necropsy (13 months postinfection), 15 tissue specimens, including tonsil, lung, spleen, liver, kidney, and 10 different lymph nodes, were examined for gross lesions consistent with tuberculosis and histopathology (caseonecrotic granuloma with acid-fast bacilli); the tissues were also used to isolate M. bovis by bacteriologic culture; disease status was confirmed for all 11 infected reindeer by positive histopathology findings in one or more tissue specimens (not shown). Numbers of tissues with positive gross pathology and/or bacteriology results are shown.

^dThe pathology score is the value for gross lesions plus the value for culture from tissues plus the number of positive tissues. Positive and negative findings were assigned values of 1 and 0, respectively. Pearson's correlation coefficient was 0.68 (P = 0.02) for the comparison of MAPIA scores to pathology scores.

^eEuthanized 7 months postinfection due to complications unrelated to M. bovis inoculation.