Our analyses revealed that the index displayed excellent performance in discriminating healthy controls from TB cohorts (confirmed TB, highly probable TB and their combination) (Fig. 4 and Supplemental Table 4, AUC = 0.8969 [95% CI 0.8543–0.9396], 0.8661 [95% CI 0.8141–0.9181] or 0.8824 [95% CI 0.8425–0.9222], sensitivity = 0.7933 [95% CI 0.8726–0.9628], 0.7313 [95% CI 0.6480–0.8042] or 0.7641 [95% CI 0.7103–0.8122], specificity = 0.9 [95% CI 0.7819–0.9667], 0.9 [95% CI 0.7819–0.9667] or 0.9 [95% CI 0.7819–0.9667], and odds ratio = 7.93, 7.31 or 7.64, respectively, for the CD8+CD161+ index). Here, KLRB1 is linked to tuberculosis.