Patent ID: 7867502

Claim:
A substantially pure polypeptide selected from the group consisting of a short peptide of at least seven consecutive amino acids and at most 10 consecutive amino acids, an oligopeptide of at least 11 consecutive amino acids and at most 100 consecutive amino acids and a longer polypeptide of at least 101 consecutive amino acids and at most 150 consecutive amino acids, wherein said substantially pure polypeptide comprises a) an amino acid sequence encoded by a member of the esat-6 gene family, b) or comprises an amino acid analogue having a sequence identity with a polypeptide encoded by a member of the esat-6 gene family of at least 94%, wherein b) is immunologically equivalent to the polypeptide encoded by a member of the esat-6 gene family, with the proviso that the substantially pure polypeptide is not selected from the group consisting of Rv0287, Rv0288, Rv1037c, Rv1038c, Rv1197, Rv1198, Rv1792, Rv1793, Rv2346c, Rv2347c, Rv3019c, Rv3619c, Rv3620c, Rv3874, and Rv3875.