Rifampin is one of the most important drugs in the treatment of tuberculosis. Its widespread use makes it important to detect rifampin resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis effectively, as increasingly resistant strains of TB continue to spread around the world. In conjunction with this study, I have used two different sequencing technologies to detect rifampin resistance in M. tuberculosis by sequencing an 81-bp region of the rpoB gene, where previous research has shown that an overwhelming majority of rifampin-resistant strains of tuberculosis have mutations that are positively correlated with rifampin resistance. I used the conventional chain-termination method (commonly known as the Sanger method) to examine the genotypes of 16 different strains of M. tuberculosis. The second method employed was pyrosequencing. This relatively new technology is distinct from the Sanger method, as it is dependent on detecting the release of pyrophosphate during the incorporation of nucleotides into DNA.
Aman Melles