One third of the world population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Fortunately, only 5% of them will develop a
tuberculosis. The factors leading to the development of active tuberculosis in infected subjects are uncompletely understood and we have
no biomarker of risk of development of tuberculosis.   Three projects are devoted to this theme in our lab, all being financed by
European Projects.         1. Caracterization of the immune reponses to the heparin binding haemagglutinin in M. tuberculosis
infected people. (European Project NEWTBVAC).   As only methylated HBHA is a protective antigen, we analyse the role of the metylation
of HBHA in the induction of protection.   Clinical assays with new vaccines will need knowledge about biomarkers of protection
and disease. By comparing the immune responses from infected and non diseased subjects to those from patients with active disease,
we search for the identification of new biomarkers of protection and disease.   Some biomarkers of disease were already identified
and we have shown that they can be used as new diagnostic markers of TB. These tests are now validaded in different cohorts of
patients.   Regulatory T cells specifically induced by mycobacterial antigens were identified as biomarkers of disease so that we are
now workineg at the characterisation of these cells and we investigate the mechanism of their induction/ regulation.