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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, September 2000, p. 2581-2584, Vol. 44, No. 9
0066-4804/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Mutant Prevention Concentration as a Measure of
Antibiotic Potency: Studies with Clinical Isolates of
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Yuzhi
Dong,
Xilin
Zhao,
Barry N.
Kreiswirth, and
Karl
Drlica*
Public Health Research Institute, New York,
New York 10016
Received 16 August 1999/Returned for modification 1 October
1999/Accepted 19 June 2000
 |
ABSTRACT |
The mutant prevention concentration (MPC) of a C-8-methoxy
fluoroquinolone exhibited a narrow distribution for 14 genetically diverse clinical isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis,
indicating that results from single-isolate studies are
likely to be representative. When one isolate was challenged with a
variety of antituberculosis agents, C-8-methoxy
fluoroquinolones were exceptional in having MPCs below the maximum
concentration attained in serum by use of commonly recommended doses.
 |
TEXT |
Antibiotic resistance is becoming an
increasingly serious problem for many bacterial diseases
(12). To help halt further selection of resistant mutants,
we have defined a drug concentration threshold above which bacterial
cells require the presence of two or more resistance mutations for
growth (20). The simultaneous occurrence of multiple
mutations is a rare event relative to the number of cells present
during infection; consequently, administration of antibiotic above the
concentration threshold, which we call the mutant prevention
concentration (MPC), should severely restrict selection of resistant
mutants. Experimentally, MPC has been taken as the drug concentration
that allows no mutant to be recovered from a susceptible population of
more than 1010 cells (7). For MPC to be
therapeutically useful, it must be below the concentration achievable
in serum or tissue with safe doses of antibiotic. Whether such
situations exist has not been determined.
In earlier work we found that addition of a methoxy group to the C-8
position of N-1-cyclopropyl fluoroquinolones makes the compounds particularly effective against quinolone-resistant mutants of
Escherichia coli (13, 22), Staphylococcus
aureus (7, 21), Mycobacterium bovis BCG
(6, 7), and Mycobacterium tuberculosis
(19). For M. bovis BCG the MPC of a C-8-methoxy fluoroquinolone was only 12% of that observed of its
C-8-hydrogen derivative or a clinical standard, ciprofloxacin
(7). Thus, C-8-methoxy fluoroquinolone attack of a
pathogenic mycobacterium could provide a good experimental
system for determination of whether MPC can be lower than the serum
drug concentration.
In the present study we measured the susceptibilities of 14 M. tuberculosis isolates to PD161148, the fluoroquinolone that had
previously been shown to have the most activity against mycobacteria, to determine whether diverse isolates respond to fluoroquinolones in
the same general way. Test isolates with different IS6110
DNA types were chosen (18). To minimize potential bias, we
studied several clinical isolates from each of the three main genetic groups of M. tuberculosis (16). As an additional
geographical test we examined strains collected from both the United
States and Russia. We then chose one isolate, an outbreak strain from New Jersey (3), to compare the abilities of several new
C-8-methoxy fluoroquinolones (Fig. 1) and
conventional antituberculosis agents to restrict the selection of
resistant mutants.
Clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis were cultured as
described previously (6). The MIC was determined by plating
dilutions of cultures on 7H10 agar plates containing various
concentrations of antibiotic (6). The concentration that
reduced the number of colonies recovered by at least 99% relative to
the number of untreated control colonies recovered was taken as the
MIC. For mutant selection, cultures were grown to the stationary
phase in liquid medium, concentrated by centrifugation
(3,000 × g for 10 min), resuspended in fresh 7H9
medium (10), and applied in various amounts to agar
plates containing different concentrations of antibacterial agent. More
than 1010 CFU was plated for the highest antibiotic
concentrations (>2 × 109 CFU to each of five
agar plates). Colonies were counted after incubation at 37°C for 4 weeks, and they were retested for growth on drug-containing agar plates
to confirm that they were resistant mutants.
Increasing the quinolone concentration caused colony recovery to
decline sharply and then level to a plateau (Fig.
2). A concentration was reached for
the C-8-methoxy compound (PD161148) at which no mutant was
recovered when more than 1010 cells were applied to
agar plates (arrowhead on abscissa of Fig. 2). A plot of the plateau
region using a linear scale, shown as an inset in Fig. 2, illustrates
restriction of mutant selection by the C-8-methoxy compound under
conditions in which mutant colonies were readily recovered with
its C-8-H derivative, PD160793. Similar curves were obtained for
all 14 strains, although in a few cases it was necessary to
extrapolate linear plots (Fig. 2, inset) to estimate the MPC. The
MPCs of PD161148 ranged from 1 to 4 µg/ml, with the MPC being 1 to 3 µg/ml for 85% of the isolates (Table 1). The narrow range of MPCs indicates
that measurement of MPC is likely to be useful for comparison of the
potencies of fluoroquinolones against diverse isolates of M. tuberculosis.

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FIG. 2.
Effect of fluoroquinolone concentration on selection of
resistant mutants. M. tuberculosis isolate TN7804 was
applied to agar plates containing the indicated concentrations of
PD161148 (C-8-methoxy; open circles) or PD160793 (C-8-H; filled
circles). After incubation, the number of drug-resistant colonies was
recorded and plotted relative to the number of CFU applied to the
drug-free agar plates. The arrowhead indicates the drug concentration
at which no colony was recovered from plates containing C-8-methoxy
fluoroquinolone when more than 1010 cells were applied.
(Inset) Data for points where the fraction of cells recovered was below
10 7, replotted using a linear scale.
|
|
The average MIC of PD161148 was approximately 0.2 µg/ml (Table 1),
which was about half that observed for PD160793 (data not shown). For
isolates for which MICs were low, MPCs tended to be low. Neither the
MIC nor the MPC displayed a relationship with the genotypic group or
the IS6110 DNA polymorphism type.
To compare antituberculosis agents for the ability to restrict
selection of mutants, we recovered resistant mutants at a variety of
concentrations of different drugs using M. tuberculosis
strain TN6515, a pan-susceptible isolate of the W4 IS6110
DNA type (3). Mutation frequency was a complex function of
drug concentration (Fig. 3). The several
inflection points observed with isoniazid (Fig. 3A) and streptomycin
(Fig. 3C) suggest that different resistance alleles may dominate at
different antibiotic concentrations. This prediction is being tested.
For ciprofloxacin (Fig. 3D), we showed previously that many different
alleles are selected and that the abundance of any particular
resistance allele depends on the drug concentration (22a).

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FIG. 3.
Effect of antituberculosis agent concentration on
selection of resistant mutants. M. tuberculosis isolate
TN6515 was applied to agar plates containing the indicated
concentrations of isoniazid (A), rifampin (B), streptomycin (C), and
ciprofloxacin (D). After incubation, the number of drug-resistant
colonies was recorded and was plotted relative to the number of CFU
applied to drug-free agar plates.
|
|
The MPCs of standard antituberculosis agents and
C-8-methoxy fluoroquinolones were estimated by
plating more than 1010 cells on drug-containing agar and
determining the concentration that allowed recovery of no colony (Table
2). These data show that MPC
determinations are not limited to fluoroquinolones. However, for
rifampin, streptomycin, and kanamycin we failed to find concentrations that prevented the recovery of mutants; for these compounds we obtained
only minimum estimates of MPCs. Table 2 also lists the maximum
concentrations of the commonly recommended doses of each compound
achieved in serum. The concentrations of traditional antituberculosis
agents in serum failed to exceed the MPCs; consequently, these
compounds will select resistant mutants whenever they are administered
as monotherapy (8, 20). In contrast, the C-8-methoxy fluoroquinolones moxifloxacin and PD135432 (gatifloxacin) had MPCs
below the maximum concentration achievable in serum (Table 2).
The data described above indicate that tuberculosis may be treatable
with C-8-methoxy fluoroquinolones at concentrations that will severely
restrict the selection of resistant mutants. It may be possible to
develop an effective dual-drug therapy by combining one of the
C-8-methoxy fluoroquinolones with another antituberculosis drug: when
the concentrations of both compounds are kept above their MICs and the
concentration of the fluoroquinolone is above its MPC, three mutations
would be required for bacterial growth. As discussed elsewhere
(20), the key to preventing resistance from arising in the
dual-drug situation is to have the pharmacokinetic profiles of the two
compounds match such that no time exists when the concentration of only
one compound is above its MIC and below its MPC. We are now examining
potential partners for C-8-methoxy fluoroquinolones to create a highly
effective combination therapy for the treatment of infections caused by
strains of M. tuberculosis that are already resistant
to isoniazid and rifampin.
 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
We thank John Domagala, Marila Gennaro, Sam Kayman, and Tao Lu for
critical comments on the manuscript. We also thank John Domagala and
Glenn Tillotson for supplying fluoroquinolones.
The work was supported by grant AI35257 from the National Institutes of Health.
 |
ADDENDUM IN PROOF |
MIC99 and MPC of PD161148 were 0.06 and 2.3 µg/ml,
respectively, for the laboratory strain H37Rv.
 |
FOOTNOTES |
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Public Health
Research Institute, 455 First Ave., New York, NY 10016. Phone: (212) 578-0830. Fax: (212) 578-0804. E-mail:
drlica{at}phri.nyu.edu.
Publication 69 of the PHRI TB Center.
 |
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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, September 2000, p. 2581-2584, Vol. 44, No. 9
0066-4804/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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