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The protective role of B cells and humoral immune responses in tuberculosis infection has been regarded as inferior to cellular immunity directed to the intracellular pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However, B-cell-mediated immune responses in tuberculosis have recently been revisited in the context of B-cell physiology and antigen presentation. We discuss in this review the diverse functions of B cells in tuberculosis, with a focus on their biological and clinical relevance to progression of active disease. We also present the peptide microarray platform as a promising strategy to discover unknown antigenic targets of M. tuberculosis that could contribute to the better understanding of epitope focus of the humoral immune system against M. tuberculosis.
Rao et al. (Fri,) studied this question.