Antigen-specific immunostimulation of amino acid transport: proposed method for the diagnosis of tuberculosis in cattle.

Preliminary data on a novel method for the diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis (TB) has been presented. This method is based on increased amino acid transport in specifically stimulated lymphocyte cultures. Lymphocytes isolated from TB-infected or -sensitized cattle and cultured with the TB antigen PPD-B had noticeably enhanced amino acid transport after 1-3 days. Transport continued to increase for up to 5 days of culture with the antigen. PPD-B did not stimulate transport in lymphocytes from nonsensitized animals. The new method correlated well with the tuberculin skin test and antigen-induced lymphocyte proliferation measured by flow cytometry.