From multidrug-resistant to extensively drugresistant tuberculosis in

Objectives: The development and transmission of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) constitutes a serious threat to the effective control of TB in several countries. Here, in an attempt to further elucidate the dynamics of the acquisition of resistance to second-line drugs and investigate an eventual role for eis promoter mutations in aminoglycoside resistance, we have studied a set of multidrug-resistant (MDR)/XDR-TB isolates circulating in Lisbon, Portugal. Methods: Forty-four MDR-TB or XDR-TB isolates were genotyped and screened for mutations in genes asso-ciated with second-line drug resistance, namely tlyA, gyrA, rrs and eis. Results: The most prevalent mutations found in each gene were Ins755GT in tlyA, A1401G in rrs, G-10A in eis and S91P in gyrA. Additionally, two genetic clusters were found in this study: Lisboa3 and Q1. The characteristic mutational profile found among recent XDR-TB circulating in Lisbon was also found in MDR-TB strains isolated in the 1990s. Also investigated was the resistance level conferred by eis G-10A mutations, revealing that eis G-10A mutations may result in amikacin resistance undetectable by widely used phenotypic assays. Conclusions: The analysis of the distribution of the mutations found by genetic clustering showed that in the Q