184 R. Waters and M. Vordermeier
parameters (reviewed by Walzl et al., 2011;
Thakur et al., 2012; Wallis et al., 2013). Phalane
et al. (2013) evaluated a panel of 33 host immu-
nological markers in saliva and sera from TB
patients in Cape Town, South Africa. As com-
pared to non-infected subjects, fractalkine,
IL-17, IL-6, IL-9, MIP-1β, CRP, VEGF and IL-5
levels in saliva and IL-6, IL-2, SAP and SAA lev-
els in serum were significantly higher in TB
patients. Of note, there were large differences
between markers in saliva versus sera.
12.9 ConclusionsOver the past 20 years, numerous advances
have been made in the discovery and
development of antigens and immune biomark-
ers for potential use in the diagnosis of bovine
TB. With that said, only a handful of these anti-
gens (e.g. ESAT-6, CFP10, Rv3615c, MPB83
and MPB70) and none of the biomarkers have
been utilized even for limited use in commercial
diagnostic tests. Thus, a critical need for the next
decade will be to take the next step in immune
assay development by critically evaluating novel
immune biomarkers/antigens in practical plat-
forms with a wide range of samples from natu-
rally infected cattle for direct comparison to
existing official tests (in particular, traditional
TST and IGRAs). This next step will likely require
collaborations and investment from funding
agencies, biologics companies, livestock stake-
holders, policymakers, and federal/regional
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