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. 1978 Nov;34(2):164–169.

Lymphocyte response of leprosy patients to human-derived and purified armadillo-derived Mycobacterium leprae, BCG and PPD.

A H Smelt, F Y Liew, R J Rees
PMCID: PMC1537485  PMID: 367652

Abstract

The lymphocyte transformation test was applied to compare in vitro lymphocyte responses of tuberculoid (high resistant) and lepromatous (low resistant) leprosy patients to purified Mycobacterium leprae derived from experimentally infected armadillos and crude M. leprae derived from man, as well as to bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) and purified protein derivative (PPD). It was found that the purification procedure using enzymic digestion did not affect the immunogenicity of armadillo-derived M. leprae as compared with the crude human-derived preparation, although 2.5-5-fold higher doses of the purified organisms were required to elicitate equivalent lymphocyte responses. The result indicated the suitability of purified armadillo-derived M. leprae as the standard antigen for lymphocytes transformation tests in leprosy. The cross-reactivity studies show a close relationship between PPD and BCG, but not between M. leprae and PPD or BCG.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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