Study heralds genetic era of TB drug susceptibility testing

A new study by an international team of scientists suggests that whole-genome sequencing could hold the key to more accurate and faster detection of antibiotic resistance and susceptibility in tuberculosis (TB) infections.

In an article published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine, members of the CRyPTIC Consortium and the 100,000 Genomes Project report that sequencing of more than 10,000 tuberculosis isolates enabled the correct prediction of resistance and susceptibility to first-line TB drugs with a degree of accuracy sufficient for clinical use. The authors of the study say their results indicate that DNA sequencing could be used to guide TB therapy in lieu of culture-based drug-susceptibility testing, an advance that could lead to quicker and more individualized treatment.

“To devise individualized therapies, a diagnostic assay is needed to determine which drugs to give, in addition to which drugs to avoid,” they write. “These data show how our understanding of the molecular determinants of resistance to first-line antituberculosis drugs allows us to consider using DNA sequencing to guide therapy.”

The results of the study were released during yesterday’s United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB, where world leaders agreed to take action against drug-resistant TB as part of a larger commitment to ending the TB epidemic by 2030.

Source: CIDRAP