The Role of Antibody Testing Using Commercially Available Reagents in Tuberculosis Surveillance Algorithms Being Developed for Nonhuman Primate Breeding Colonies

The detection and elimination of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex-infected nonhuman primates (NHPs) is vitally important to ensure the biosecurity and health of the individual animals as well as the NHP colonies and humans who have contact with them. In the century since the tuberculin skin test was developed and used for detection, additional tests targeting the organisms or the host response to them have been proposed as alternative or adjunct pieces to build a testing algorithm. None has gained widespread acceptance for use in NHPs. A major obstacle has been the lack of rigorous studies to validate the use of these tests, especially comparisons against isolation via culture, the long accepted but less than perfect and often technically challenging gold standard. The changing biology of infection over time and the lack of availability of statistically powerful numbers of well-characterized samples from known naturally infected subjects have been additional obstacles. Recent studies have examined the use of newer assays such as IFNγ release assays for cell-mediated immune responses and PCR tests for direct agent detection. In this study we explored the use of antibody testing using commercially available reagents: 39 nonnegative skin tests and 16 nonnegative antibody tests were found in 593 animals from 3 large, stable, long-term breeding colonies. Using multiple tests, infection was not confirmed in any of the animals. Thus, antibody testing may be another useful tool for TB surveillance in NHPs.