Rapid Drug Susceptibility Test of Mycobacteria Tuberculosis by Single Cell Tracking Method in 3d Agarose Matrix

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of major global health problems. To make matters worse, the drug resistant TB such as multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) is spreading out throughout the world which means the drug susceptibility test (DST) is necessary to treat the TB patients. To reduce the time for DST, we applied the single cell tracking method. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) was inoculated in the agarose matrix which is used for 3D culture environment and drug delivery media. For single cell tracking of MTB, we fabricated a microfluidic chip which contains a chamber for agarose matrix. By observing the response of MTB to the drug in single cell resolution using microscopy, we could differentiate the growth and non-growth of MTB according to the TB drug and its concentration and determine drug susceptibility only in five days which is concordance with the DST results from conventional method. This rapid DST method can reduce DST time dramatically and be used for fast and accurate treatments for TB patients leading the increase of the cure rate.