Mycobacterium tuberculosis PPE protein Rv0256c induces strong B cell response in tuberculosis patients

•The study was conducted to test the antigenic nature of Mycobacterium tuberculosis PPE protein Rv0256c.•The immunoreactivity is studied both in TB patients and also BCG vaccinated healthy individuals.•The B-cell response of this protein is compared with PPD and ESAT-6.•We found that Rv0256c can be used for the serodiagnosis of different categories of TB. Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most important diseases of humans and major public health problem worldwide. Early and accurate diagnosis of TB is necessary for the treatment, prevention, and control of TB. Therefore, it is important to identify suitable antigens that can differentiate active tuberculosis patients from BCG-vaccinated individuals. In the present study, we have used Rv0256c (PPE2) protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to screen the sera of infected patients belonging to different clinical TB presentations, and BCG-vaccinated clinically healthy individuals by enzyme immunoassay. Our results demonstrated that Rv0256c displayed stronger and specific immunoreactivity against the sera obtained from clinically active tuberculosis patients compared to PPD and ESAT-6 and could differentiate the TB-patients from the BCG-vaccinated controls. Importantly, Rv0256c was also found to detect even the extrapulmonary and smear-negative pulmonary cases which often are tedious and difficult to detect using conventional diagnostic methods. This study suggests that Rv0256c can be used as a potential marker for the serodiagnosis of tuberculosis patients.