CYP141 gene: A New approach for Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Identification

Tuberculosis is one of the dangerous infectiousdiseases in the world; annually, two millionpeople die of the disease. Right now, thereare a number of phenomena such as theemergence of extensively drug resistantMycobacterium tuberculosis (XDR-TB),multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis(MDR-TB) and Human Immuno deficiencyVirus(HIV) which have also exacerbated theexisting situation (1, 2).Furthermore, Nontuberculosismycobacteria (NTM) species whichlive in the environmental resources can causepulmonary infections in human which aresymptoms, clinical manifestations of the patientand the results of radiological pictures similar tothe tuberculosis and potential to misdiagnose withtuberculosis disease (3).In many developing countries, given thatTuberculosis disease is usually epidemic in theseregions clinically isolates of Mycobacteriumspecies are not diagnosed at the species level (3);moreover, according to the isolation methods ofmycobacterium spp. are similar and opportunisticspecies of Non-tuberculosis mycobacteriaanalogous to Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex(MTBC) are acid-fast bacilli in ZihelNeelson(ZN)staining; therefore, it is probable that bothgroups ofmycobacteria (NTM and MTBC) aremisdiagnosed.Unfortunately, NTM species areresistance to anti-tuberculosis antibiotics and thetreatment regimen of Non-tuberculosismycobacterium infections are different fromMycobacterium tuberculosis; accordingly, manydrug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) reports fromdeveloping countries are actually misreports (3, 4).Given that Mycobacterium species in theselaboratories have not been identified at the specieslevel and these species reported as Mycobacteriumtuberculosis (limited to the results of ZN-stainingad microscopic evaluation), according to NTMspecies anti-tuberculosis drugs are resistant tothese antibiotics; therefore, the patients have notbeen cured and reported as drug-resistanttuberculosis (DR-TB) (3, 4). There are two methodsfor Mycobacterium specie identification to thespecies level:1) Conventional methods includingacid-fast staining,