In its myriad devastating forms, Tuberculosis (TB) has existed for centuries, and humanity is still affected by it. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis), the causative agent of TB, was the foremost killer among infectious agents until the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the key healthcare strategies available to reduce the risk of TB is immunization with bacilli Calmette-Guerin (BCG). Although BCG has been widely used to protect against TB, reports show that BCG confers highly variable efficacy (0-80%) against adult pulmonary TB. Unwavering efforts have been made over the past 20 years to develop and evaluate new TB vaccine candidates. The failure of conventional preclinical animal models to fully recapitulate human response to TB, as also seen for the failure of MVA85A in clinical trials, signifies the need to develop better preclinical models for TB vaccine evaluation. In the present review article, we outline various approaches used to identify protective mycobacterial antigens and recent advancements in preclinical models for assessing the efficacy of candidate TB vaccines.

结核病 (TB) 以其多种破坏性形式已经存在了几个世纪，人类仍然受到它的影响。结核分枝杆菌( M. tuberculosis ) 是结核病的病原体，在 COVID-19 大流行之前一直是传染源中的头号杀手。降低结核病风险的关键医疗保健策略之一是卡介苗 (BCG) 免疫。尽管卡介苗已广泛用于预防结核病，但报告显示，卡介苗对成人肺结核的疗效差异很大（0-80%）。过去 20 年来，人们为开发和评估新的结核病候选疫苗做出了坚定不移的努力。传统的临床前动物模型未能完全重现人类对结核病的反应，正如 MVA85A 在临床试验中的失败所见，这表明需要开发更好的临床前模型来评估结核病疫苗。在本综述文章中，我们概述了用于识别保护性分枝杆菌抗原的各种方法以及用于评估候选结核疫苗功效的临床前模型的最新进展。