Studies on the Drug Resistance in Mycobacterium Tubersulosis var. Hominis

Abstract

The occurrence of the spontaneous mutants resistant to drug in bacteria has been reported by following investigators: Luria and Delbruck, 1943; Oakberg and Luria, 1947; Witkin, 1947; Vennesland, et al., 1947; Yegian, et al., 1950; Demerec, 1948, 1951; Newcombe, et al., 1949, 1951; Hsie, et al., 1950; Szybalski, et al., 1953, and others., and reviewed by Luria (1947), Catcheside (1949), Braun (1953) and others.

Naturally resistant forms of Mycobacterium tuberculosis have been isolated by Pyle (1947) directly from the sputa of patients who have not been treated with streptomycin, and the presence of naturally resistant mutants in stock cultures of H_37RV has been demonstrated by Vennesland, Ebert and Bloch (1947). A quantitative analysis of the resistance of Mycobacteria to streptomycin has been at first made by Yegian and Vanderlinde (1948), and streptomycin resistance and neomycin resistance mutation in Mycobacterium ranae have been quantitatively studied by Hsie and Bryson (1950). We reported the mutation rate to streptomycin resistance in a parent strain and in its isoniazid-resistant mutant of Mycobacterium avium (1955).

With the purpose of obtaining fundmental results for chemotherapy of tuberculosis and especially determing the order of administration of antituberculous drugs, the number of naturally-occurring drug-resistant mutants was determined in a parent sensitive strain, in its streptomycin-resistant mutant, in its isoniazidresistant mutant and in its PAS-resistant mutant Mycobacterium tuberculosis var. hominis.