Journal of Clinical Microbiology, March 1999, p. 479-483, Vol. 37, No. 3
Wisconsin State Laboratory of
Hygiene1 and
Departments of Medical
Microbiology and Immunology2 and
Bacteriology,7 University of
Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706;
Microbiology Research
Laboratory4 and
Section of
Infectious Diseases,5 Gundersen Lutheran Medical
Center, LaCrosse, Wisconsin 54601;
Bio-Rad Laboratories,
Hercules, California 945473; and
the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
303336
Received 15 October 1998/Returned for modification 18 November
1998/Accepted 4 December 1998
We showed previously that susceptibility testing for
Mycobacterium tuberculosis labeled with fluorescein
diacetate could be accomplished rapidly by using flow cytometry.
However, safety was a major concern because mycobacteria were not
killed prior to flow cytometric analysis. In this study, we developed a
biologically safe flow cytometric susceptibility test that depends on
detection and enumeration of actively growing M. tuberculosis organisms in drug-free and antimycobacterial
agent-containing medium. The susceptibilities of 17 clinical isolates
of M. tuberculosis to ethambutol, isoniazid, and rifampin
were tested by the agar proportion and flow cytometric methods.
Subsequently, all flow cytometric susceptibility test samples were
inactivated by exposure to paraformaldehyde before analysis with a flow
cytometer. Agreement between the results from the two methods was 98%.
In addition, the flow cytometric results were available 72 h after
the initiation of testing. The flow cytometric susceptibility assay is
safe, simple to perform, and more rapid than conventional test methods,
such as the BACTEC system and the proportion method.
0095-1137/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Safe Determination of Susceptibility of Mycobacterium
tuberculosis to Antimycobacterial Agents by Flow
Cytometry
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Wisconsin State
Laboratory of Hygiene, University of Wisconsin, 465 Henry Mall,
Madison, WI 53706. Phone: (608) 262-3634. Fax: (608) 256-3451.
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