Investigation of the rpoB Mutations Causing Rifampin Resistance by Rapid Screening in Mycobacterium Tuberculosis in North-East of Iran

The incidence of rifampin-resistant strains of has attracted more attention than the tuberculosis infection due to laborious treatment and control. Recognizing the genotypes involving in drug resistance via multiplex PCR, a simple and rapid genotyping method, is an emergency for better treatment and control of tuberculosis. This study was designed to specify the frequency of rifampin-resistant strains of isolated from patients by multiplex allele-specific Polymerase Chain Reaction assay (MAS-PCR). In this study, 88 positive samples were included from Qaem Hospital, Mashhad. MAS-PCR was used to detect the rifampin resistance associated mutations in gene. Mutations in three codons of gene causing rifampin resistance were detected in 51 isolates (58.96%). The detected mutations in codons 531, 526, and 516 were 55.68%, 38.63%, and 13.63%, respectively. The simultaneous mutations were detected in 11 isolates (12.50%) in codons 531, 526 and 516, in 21 isolates (23.86%) in codons 531 and 526, and in one isolate (1.13%) in codons 526 and 516. According to the results of this study, the frequency of rifampin-resistant strains of isolated from Khorasan province patients (North-East of Iran) was high. The developed MAS-PCR assay can be used for rapid detection in clinical diagnostic laboratories in areas with high prevalence of multidrug-resistant strains. In this respect, MAS-PCR is simple, rapid, and highly sensitive method for drug susceptibility tests for detecting multidrug-resistant .