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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, May 2003, p. 1869-1874, Vol. 41, No. 5
0095-1137/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JCM.41.5.1869-1874.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Evaluation of Coxiella burnetii Antibiotic Susceptibilities by Real-Time PCR Assay

Robert E. Brennan and James E. Samuel*

Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Texas A&M University System Health Science Center, College Station, Texas

Received 22 October 2002/ Returned for modification 18 January 2003/ Accepted 13 February 2003

Coxiella burnetii is an obligate intracellular bacterium. The inability to cultivate this organism on axenic medium has made calculation of infectious units challenging and prevents the use of conventional antibiotic susceptibility assays. A rapid and reliable real-time PCR assay was developed to quantify C. burnetii cells from J774.16 mouse macrophage cells and was applied to antibiotic susceptibility testing of C. burnetii Nine Mile, phase I. For calculation of bacterial replication, real-time PCR performed equally as well as immunofluorescent-antibody (IFA) assay when J774.16 cells were infected with 10-fold serial dilutions of C. burnetii and was significantly (P < 0.05) more repeatable than IFA when 2-fold dilutions were used. Newly infected murine macrophage-like J774.16 cells were treated with 8 µg of chloramphenicol per ml, 4 µg of tetracycline per ml, 4 µg of rifampin per ml, 4 µg of ampicillin per ml, or 1 µg of ciprofloxacin per ml. After 6 days of treatment, tetracycline, rifampin, and ampicillin significantly (P < 0.01) inhibited the replication of C. burnetii, while chloramphenicol and ciprofloxacin did not. In general, these results are consistent with those from prior reports on the efficacy of these antibiotics against C. burnetii Nine Mile, phase I, and indicate that a real-time PCR-based assay is an appropriate alternative to the present methodology for evaluation of the antibiotic susceptibilities of C. burnetii.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Texas A&M University System Health Science, Center College Station, TX 77843-1114. Phone: (979) 862-1684. Fax: (979) 845-3479. E-mail: jsamuel{at}tamu.edu.

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, May 2003, p. 1869-1874, Vol. 41, No. 5
0095-1137/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JCM.41.5.1869-1874.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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