Objective Tuberculosis infection in the live monkeys was usually diagnosed by tuberculin test.It was difficult in tuberculous monkeys' management that quarantine method was single,and the sensitivity and specificity of tuberculin test was low.The purpose of this study is to establish an ELISA detection method of mycobacterium antibody in monkeys.Methods Three antigens(cytoplasm protein,PPD-bovis and TDM) were applied in the ELISA test.The application value was evaluated by detecting the sera of 28 monkeys following a natural outbreak of tuberculosis and 121 healthy monkeys.Results On the basis of the sensitivity and specificity of detecting results,they were analyzed by receiver operating characteristic(ROC) curve.The sensitivity of the cytoplasm protein,PPD-bovis,TDM was 89.3%,75% and 64.3%,respectively.The specificity was 93.4%,95.9%,88.4%,respectively.The areas under ROC curve were 0.964,0.858 and 0.844,respectively.All the areas exceeded 0.5,P<0.01.Conclusion\ These results indicate that all the three antigens can be used in ELISA detection test of serum of tuberculous monkeys.They have good serum diagnostic accuracy.Among them,the cytoplasm protein is a good antigen to detect tuberculous monkeys' antibody,showing the highest sensitivity and specificity in the ELISA tests.The result of ELISA test using TDM in serum-diagnosis of tuberculous monkeys is not satisfactory.