A POLYNUCLEOTIDE FUNCTIONALLY CODING FOR THE LHP PROTEIN FROM MYCOBACTERIUM TUBERCULOSIS, ITS BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE DERIVATIVE FRAGMENTS, AS WELL AS METHODS USING THE SAME

摘要

The present invention is directed to a polynucleotide carrying a n open reading frame coding for an antigenic polypeptide from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, named lhp, which is placed under the control of its own regulation signals which are functional in mycobacteria, specially in mycobacteria belonging to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and also in fast growing mycobacteria such as Mycobacterium smegmatis. The invention is also directed to the polypeptide LHP encoded by lhp and most preferably to suitable antigenic portions of LHP as well as to oligomeric polypeptides containing more than one unit of LHP or an antigenic portion of LHP. The invention concerns also immunogenic and vaccine compositions containing a polypeptide or an oligomeric polypeptide such as defined above, as well as antibodies directed specifically against such polypeptides that are useful as diagnostic reagents. In another embodiment, the present invention is directed to a polynucleotide carrying the natural regulation signals of lhp which is useful in order to express heterologous proteins in mycobacteria. Finally, the present invention is directed to oligonucleotides comprising at least 12 consecutive nucleotides from the regulation sequence of lhp which are useful as reagents for detecting the presence of Mycobacterium tubercolosis in a biological sample.