Draft Genome Sequences of Local Clinical Isolates of Drug-Resistant and Drug-Sensitive <named-content content-type='genus-species'>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</named-content>

In the battle against tuberculosis (TB), plasticity of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome is believed to contribute to the pathogen’s virulence and drug resistance. Here, we report 10 draft genome sequences of clinical M. tuberculosis isolated in Malaysia as the basis for understanding the genome plasticity of the M. tuberculosis isolates. M ycobacterium tuberculosis is a member of the family Mycobacteriaceae and is the causative agent for tuberculosis (TB). Challenges in TB treatment and prevention to curb the spread of TB became complicated due to drug-resistant TB (DR-TB). According to the 2019 Global TB report released by the World Health Organization (WHO), the prevalence rate of TB in Malaysia is at 92 per 100,000 people, with an estimation of 1.2% for multidrug resistant/rifampicin-resistant TB (MDR/RR-TB) (1). Here, we report five drug-resistant and five drug-susceptible clinical M. tuberculosis isolates collected from pulmonary TB patients at the local hospital in Malaysia before they started on anti-TB treatment. Sputum specimens were collected by clinicians at the respective hospitals and sent to the National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL) for culture and isolation of pure M. tuberculosis; isolates were subsequently tested for their sensitivity and resistance toward anti-TB drugs. Pure M. tuberculosis isolates were cultured on Lowenstein-Jensen medium (L-J) and incubated at 37°C for 3 to 5 weeks. The phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (Phe-DST) was done using the absolute concentration method or proportion method (Bactec MGIT 960 TB detection system) according to the standard protocols (Becton, Dickinson, Sparks, MD, USA) (2–4). Each M. tuberculosis isolate was first tested for susceptibility against the first-line anti-TB drugs. Then, isolates that were resistant toward isoniazid and rifampicin were further tested against the second-line anti-TB drugs. However, isolates which were sensitive toward first-line anti-TB drugs were not subjected to the Phe-DST of the second-line anti-TB drugs. The isolates were heat deactivated and sent to iPROMISE UiTM for whole-genome sequencing. The genomic DNA of each M. tuberculosis isolate was extracted using the conventional chloroform extraction method (5). According to the manufacturer’s instructions, DNA libraries of each M. tuberculosis isolate were prepared using the Nextera DNA Flex library preparation kit (Illumina, Inc., San Diego, CA) and sequenced using a next-generation sequencer (Illumina, Inc., San Diego, CA). Adaptor sequences and low-quality reads of the paired-end read sequences were trimmed using the Cutadapt tool version 3.4 with Phyton version 2.7. 12 (6). The quality of the trimmed reads was assessed using the FastQC software version 0.11. 3 with the default parameters (Abraham Bioinformatics, Cambridge, UK). On Citation Zainal Abidin N, Noorizhab MNF, Teh LK, Lim WF, Mohd Noordin N, Aziz ZA, Abu Bakar Z, Ismail AI, Mohd Nor N, Salleh MZ. 2021. Draft genome sequences of local clinical isolates of drug-resistant and drug-sensitive Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Microbiol Resour Announc 10:e00352-21. https://doi.org/10 . 1128/MRA.00352-21. Editor David Rasko, University of Maryland School of Medicine Copyright © 2021 Zainal Abidin et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Address correspondence to Noorliza Mohd Noordin, noorliza@moh.gov. my, or Mohd Zaki Salleh, zakisalleh@uitm.edu. my. Received 4 April 2021 Accepted 22 May 2021 Published 24 June 2021 Volume 10 Issue 25 e00352-21 mra.asm. org 1 GENOME SEQUENCES