Press release - The innovative Deeplex® Myc-TB antibiotic resistance prediction test has been evaluated by an international research team. By analyzing data from more than 5,600 strains and samples of various origins and types, this study measures for the first time the sensitivity, specificity and detection limit of this test.
With 10 million new cases per year and 1.4 million deaths in 20181 , tuberculosis remains the world’s deadliest infectious bacterial disease. The emergence and spread of multidrug-resistant mycobacterial strains (causing nearly 400,000 new cases in 2018) is a global public health problem that complicates the combat against tuberculosis.
The Deeplex® Myc-TB test, thanks to its innovative engineering by deep sequencing, allows the simultaneous detection of susceptibility or resistance to 13 classes of antibiotic molecules2 , including first and second line antituberculosis drugs, and new molecules. This test is based on the targeted amplification and sequencing of more than 20 genetic regions. The major benefit of this test is the ability to obtain an extensive antibiotic resistance profile and genotype of the bacterium from a clinical sample, without any prior culture step.
The study published in the medical-scientific journal “The European respiratory journal”3, is the first to exhaustively assess the specificity, sensitivity and detection limit of this test, based on data from a large panel of more than 4,000 strains and 1,600 clinical samples. To conduct this evaluation, the GenoScreen team analysed the antimicrobial resistance data obtained with Deeplex® Myc-TB, and compared them to the data from reference tests currently in use (phenotypic tests and/or whole genome analyses (WGS), carried out after culture), obtained by Belgian (Institute of Tropical Medicine - Antwerp, Sciensano, - Brussels) and Italian (San Raffaelle Institute - Milan) teams.
1 OMS. Global tuberculosis report 2019. https://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/en/
2 1st intention molecules (rifampicin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide, ethambutol); 2nd intention molecules: - fluoroquinolones (such as levofloxacin, moxifloxacin and ciprofloxacin), aminoglycosides (kanamycin, amikacin, capreomycin, streptomycin), - ethionamide, - clofazimine, and new antibiotic molecules (bedaquiline, linezolid).
3 Jouet A, Gaudin C, Badalato N, et al. Deep amplicon sequencing for culture-free prediction of susceptibility or resistance to 13 antituberculous drugs. Eur Respir J 2020; in press (https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.02338-2020)