Final Report Summary - TB-DRUG OLIGOCOLOR (Development of a molecular platform for the simultaneous detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistance to rifampicin and fluoroquinolones)
The second general objective of the project was the detection of resistance to fluoroquinolones. This was addressed by analysing a collection of M. tuberculosis clinical isolates with known phenotypical susceptibility or resistance to these antibiotics. The gyrA gene was sequenced to assess new mutations associated with quinolone resistance feasible to be added as primers to the molecular platform previously designed. M. tuberculosis specific target segments in the gyrA gene also served for identification purposes.
A third objective of the project was to perform a small pre-clinical evaluation in three laboratories of the consortium to evaluate the combined platform directly on sputum samples and early positive liquid cultures.