Infection, genetics and evolution : journal of molecular epidemiology and evolutionary genetics in infectious diseases
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Infect. Genet. Evol. · Jul 2019
Detection of rifampicin resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis using multiplex allele specific polymerase chain reaction (MAS-PCR) in Pakistan.
Drug resistance in tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health challenge in developing countries such as Pakistan. Multiplex allele specific polymerase chain reaction (MAS-PCR) is a DNA amplification method that could contribute to rapid detection and control of drug resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) in Pakistan. The purpose of this study was to test the utility of MAS-PCR to detect resistance in Pakistan. ⋯ Moreover, a mutation in rpoB (Leu452Pro) was found in 5 isolates. DNA sequencing confirmed the absence of mutations in rpoB in the 8 remaining isolates. MAS-PCR had 88.3% sensitivity and 100% specificity using DST as the reference, which suggested that this method could be implemented as an initial marker for screening of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in Pakistan.