Species Identification and Clarithromycin Susceptibility Testing of 278 Clinical Nontuberculosis Mycobacteria Isolates

Purpose of this paper is to analyze different species' proportion of nontuberculosis mycobacteria (NTM) and susceptibility to clarithromycin of different species. 278 clinical NTM isolates were identified into species by using 16S rRNA, rpoB and hsp65. Then clarithromycin susceptibility testing against different species was done separately, using microplate Alamar Blue assay. Finally, resistance isolates' erm(41) of M. abscessus were sequenced in order to analyze mechanisms for clarithromycin resistant. In this test, 131 isolates (47%) belonged to M. avium complex (MAC), and 70 isolates (25%) belonged to M. abscessus. Nearly all the M. abscessus subsp. abscessus resistant to clarithromycin had T28 in erm(41). However, all the M. abscessus subsp. abscessus susceptible to clarithromycin had C28 in erm(41). In this study, we find that MAC was the most common pathogens of NTM, and the second one was M. abscessus. However, M. chelonei, M. fuerth, and M. gordon were rare. Clarithromycin had a good inhibition activity against all the NTM species except M. abscessus subsp. abscessus. The erm(41) genotype is of high relevance to clarithromycin resistance.