The authors thank all the patients for donating their blood and information
for these studies and staff of the “Centro de Referência em
Diagnóstico e Terapêutica” in Goiânia for their cooperation and support
during recruitment. This study was supported by American Leprosy
Missions and The Heiser Program for Research in Leprosy and Tuberculosis
of The NewYork Community. DrMarianeM.A. Stefani is a recipient
of a fellowship from National Counsel of Technological and Scientific
Development (Brazil) (CNPq, grant no. 304869/2008-2) and MSc.
Aline A. Freitas was supported by a scholarship awarded by the Coordination
of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel CAPES,
(Brazil—grant no. 1054292).We are grateful to Greg Ireton, Jeff Guderian,
RaodohMohamath, Alex Picone, and AyeshaMisquith for producing
of high-quality recombinant proteins and Dr Tsuyoshi Fujiwara (Nara
University, Japan) for generously providing the NT-P-BSA antigen