Abstract:
Objective To understand the drug resistance-associated gene mutation characteristics of multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MDR-MTB), evaluate the efficacy of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in the detection of drug resistance of MDR-MTB in Hebei province, and verify the application potential of WGS in clinical tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis and drug resistance surveillance.
Methods Clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis were collected from 11 cities in Hebei between 2022 and 2023. After species identification and phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (pDST) with proportion method, 152 MDR-MTB isolates were subjected to WGS. The drug resistance mutation loci were identified by alignment with the genome sequence of H37Rv, and the sensitivity, specificity, and consistency of WGS in the detection of the resistance of MDR-MTB to 10 anti-TB drugs were evaluated by using pDST results as the gold standard.
Results In the Results In the 152 MDR-MTB isolates, the primary resistance-associated mutation types to isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RFP), streptomycin (Sm), ethambutol (EMB), fluoroquinolones (FQs), the second-line injectable drugs (SLIDs), including kanamycin (KM), amikacin (AM), and capreomycin (CM), and pyrazinamide (PZA) were katG p.Ser315Thr (115/143, 80.42%), rpoB p.Ser450Leu (112/151, 74.17%), rpsL p.Lys43Arg (108/136, 79.41%), embB p.Met306Val (32/83, 38.55%), gyrA p.Ala90Val (24/65, 36.92%), rrs n.1401A>G (14/15-14/14, 93.33%~100.00%) and pncA p.Asp136Gly (12/70, 17.14%). Additionally, one isolate exhibited mutation associated with resistance to linezolid (LZD) at locus RplC p.Cys154Arg. The sensitivities of WGS for predicting resistance of MDR-MTB to INH and RFP were 94.08% and 99.34%, respectively.The sensitivities for predicting resistance to moxifloxacin, ofloxacin, and levofloxacin ranged from 95.31% to 96.77%, with specificities ranging from 93.41% to 95.45%.the specificities for predicting resistance to KM and AM were both 100.00%.
Conclusion WGS demonstrated good performance in the detection of the resistance of MDR-MTB to INH, RFP, FQs, KM, AM, and CM, indicating high potential for the application in TB diagnosis and drug resistance surveillance.