IFNG and tuberculosis: As shown in Figure 3A, both Rv1566c-444 and Rv1566c induced higher SFCs in TB patients than in healthy donors (P<0.05 and P<0.01), while there was no difference between the SFCs induced by Rv1566c-444 and Rv1566c in TB patients, which was consistent with the hypothesis that T-Cell epitope-rich fragment induces similar IFN-γ production in T cells with its parental protein.