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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, February 2000, p. 326-336, Vol. 44, No. 2
0066-4804/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Molecular Genetic Analysis of Nucleotide Polymorphisms Associated
with Ethambutol Resistance in Human Isolates of
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Srinivas V.
Ramaswamy,1,2
Amol G.
Amin,2
Servet
Göksel,2,
Charles E.
Stager,2
Shu-Jun
Dou,2
Hana
El
Sahly,2
Soraya L.
Moghazeh,3
Barry N.
Kreiswirth,3 and
James
M.
Musser1,2,*
Laboratory of Human Bacterial Pathogenesis,
Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Hamilton, Montana
598401; Institute for the Study of Human
Bacterial Pathogenesis, Department of Pathology, Baylor College of
Medicine, Houston, Texas 770302; and
Tuberculosis Center, Public Health Research Institute, New
York, New York 100163
Received 10 September 1999/Returned for modification 25 October
1999/Accepted 12 November 1999
Ethambutol (EMB) is a central component of drug regimens used
worldwide for the treatment of tuberculosis. To gain insight into the
molecular genetic basis of EMB resistance, approximately 2 Mb of
five chromosomal regions with 12 genes in 75 epidemiologically unassociated EMB-resistant and 33 EMB-susceptible Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains isolated from human patients were sequenced. Seventy-six percent of EMB-resistant organisms had an amino acid replacement or other molecular change not found in EMB-susceptible strains. Thirty-eight (51%) EMB-resistant isolates had a
resistance-associated mutation in only 1 of the 12 genes sequenced.
Nineteen EMB-resistant isolates had resistance-associated nucleotide
changes that conferred amino acid replacements or upstream potential
regulatory region mutations in two or more genes. Most isolates
(68%) with resistance-associated mutations in a single gene had
nucleotide changes in embB, a gene encoding an
arabinosyltransferase involved in cell wall biosynthesis. The majority
of these mutations resulted in amino acid replacements at position 306 or 406 of EmbB. Resistance-associated mutations were also identified in
several genes recently shown to be upregulated in response to exposure
of M. tuberculosis to EMB in vitro, including genes in the
iniA operon. Approximately one-fourth of the organisms studied lacked mutations inferred to participate in EMB resistance, a
result indicating that one or more genes that mediate resistance to
this drug remain to be discovered. Taken together, the results indicate
that there are multiple molecular pathways to the EMB resistance phenotype.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratory of
Human Bacterial Pathogenesis, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of
Health, 903 S. 4th St., Hamilton, MT 59840. Phone: (406) 363-9315. Fax: (406) 363-9427. E-mail: jmusser{at}niaid.nih.gov.

Present address: Department of Clinical Microbiology, Ege
University, Bornova-Izmir,
Turkey.
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, February 2000, p. 326-336, Vol. 44, No. 2
0066-4804/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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