Drug susceptibility testing for oxygen-dependent and oxygen-independent resistance phenotypes in trichomonads

Lam, AYF; Lacey, E; De Petra, V; Williamson, DA; Šlapeta, J; Jex, AR; Emery-Corbin, SJ

Author(s): Lam, AYF; Lacey, E; De Petra, V; Williamson, DA; Šlapeta, J; Jex, AR; Emery-Corbin, SJ;
Details: Publication Year 2023-01-25,Volume 53,Issue #5-6,Page 247-252
Journal Title: International Journal for Parasitology
Abstract: Trichomonas vaginalis is the most prevalent, non-viral sexually transmitted human infection, causing 170 million cases of trichomoniasis annually. Since the 1950s, treatment has relied on 5-nitroimidazoles (5NIs), leading to increasing drug resistance. A similar drug resistance problem is present in the veterinary pathogen, Tritrichomonas foetus. There are currently no agreed standards for defining 5NI resistance, due in part to two distinct oxygen-dependent ("aerobic") and oxygen-independent ("anaerobic") resistance phenotypes. Diagnostic tools to detect 5NI resistance are lacking, and current assays used to phenotypically assess 5NI resistance in vitro are complicated by these two resistance phenotypes. We demonstrate that microaerophilic conditions support sufficient parasite growth to interrogate oxygen-dependent resistance of 5NIs against known resistant and susceptible isolates of T. vaginalis and T. foetus. We further demonstrate that microaerophilic conditions allow sufficient growth for compatibility with existing growth assays, including our TriTOX assay. Adopting microaerophilic conditions eliminates traditional 'by-eye' estimates of minimum inhibitory concentrations and opens up options for increased throughput and automation, scalable to higher-throughput analyses of 5NI resistance. This would further allow the development of quantitative phenotypic standards to benchmark oxygen-dependent or oxygen-independent trichomonad 5NI resistance towards standardised surveillance programs to combat drug resistance.
Publisher: Elsevier
Keywords: Assay platform; Drug resistance; Drug susceptibility testing; Microaerophiles; Nitroheterocycles; Trichomonads
Research Division(s): Advanced Technology And Biology; Population Health And Immunity; Infectious Diseases And Immune Defence; Population Health and Immunity; Advanced Technology and Biology
PubMed ID: 36708914/
Publisher's Version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpara.2022.11.010
Terms of Use/Rights Notice: Refer to copyright notice on published article.

Creation Date: 2023-03-17 11:09:11

Last Modified: 2023-06-13 01:17:47