TB-ARC - Taiwan

NIAID-funded study to investigate Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains in Taiwan, based on resistance to fluoroquinolones (FQs). FQs have been a cornerstone of the treatment of multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis, and they are gaining increasing attention as possible components of new first-line chemotherapeutic regimens. Resistance to FQs in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is most frequently due to mutations in the drug target, DNA gyrase, which occur in the quinolone resistance determining regions (QRDRs) of the gyrA and gyrB genes. In FQ resistant Mtb isolates collected in Taiwan, it was observed that a sizeable fraction had no detectable changes in the QRDR of either gyrA or gyrB. We are sequencing the genomes of these strains in an effort to reveal the genetic basis for the FQ resistance of these organisms.