Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a worldwide zoonosis caused mainly by Mycobacterium bovis. The traditional diagnostic method used often is the tuberculin skin test, which uses bovine purified protein derivatives (PPD-B). However, it is difficult to maintain uniformity of PPD-B from batch to batch, and it shares common antigens with nonpathogenic environmental mycobacteria. To overcome these problems, M. bovis-specific antigens that showed good T cell stimulation, such as CFP-10, ESAT-6, Rv3615c, etc., have been used in the skin test, but there have been no large-scale clinical studies on these antigens. In this study, two combinations (CFP-10/ESAT-6/TB10.4 protein cocktail and CFP-10/ESAT-6/Rv3872/MPT63 protein cocktail) were developed and used as stimuli in the skin test. Cattle were double-blind tested to assess the efficiency of the protein cocktail-based skin tests. The results showed that the CFP-10/ESAT-6/TB10.4 protein cocktail-based skin test can differentiate TB-infected cattle from Mycobacterium avium-infected ones and that it shows a high degree of agreement with the traditional tuberculin skin test ( ؍ 0.8536) and gamma interferon (IFN-␥) release assay ( ؍ 0.8154). Compared to the tuberculin skin test, the relative sensitivity and relative specificity of the CFP-10/ESAT-6/TB10.4-based skin test were 87% and 97%, respectively., The relative sensitivity and relative specificity of the CFP-10/ESAT-6/TB10.4-based skin test were 93% and 92%, respectively, on comparison with the IFN-␥ release assay. The correlation between the increases in skin thickness observed after the inoculation of stimuli was high ( (1, 2). M. bovis mainly infects cattle, causing bovine tuberculosis (bTB), and occasionally affects other species of mammals (3). M. bovis can also infect humans through the inhalation of aerosols or the ingestion of unpasteurized dairy products (4, 5). The eradication of bovine tuberculosis is based on reliable diagnostic methods.The traditional diagnostic method of identifying bTB is the tuberculin skin test, which is based on the detection of delayedtype hypersensitivity (DTH) induced by bovine purified protein derivative (PPD-B). The tuberculin skin test has been used worldwide and is economical and easily applied. However, PPD-B is a poorly defined mixture of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates obtained from a virulent M. bovis culture, the uniformity of which is difficult to maintain from batch to batch (6). Moreover, the use of virulent M. bovis during the production of PPD-B may potentially harm workers. Importantly, shared antigenic components in PPD-B and nonpathogenic environmental mycobacteria can reduce the specificity of the tuberculin skin test (7,8). Although the gamma interferon (IFN-␥) release assay (IGRA) showed higher specificity than the single intradermal skin test, the high price of this kit limits its use in developing countries such as China (9, 10). To overcome the drawbacks of the traditional diagnostic methods, scientists have focused on screening new M. bovis-specific antige...