The impact of drug resistance on Mycobacterium tuberculosis physiology: what can we learn from rifampicin?

The emergence of drug-resistant pathogens poses a major threat to public health. Although influenced by multiple factors, high-level resistance is often associated with mutations in target-encoding or related genes. The fitness cost of these mutations is, in turn, a key determinant of the spread of drug-resistant strains. Rifampicin (RIF) is a frontline anti-tuberculosis agent that targets the rpoB-encoded beta subunit of the DNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RNAP). In Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), RIF resistance (RIFR) maps to mutations in rpoB that are likely to impact RNAP function and, therefore, the ability of the organism to cause disease. However, while numerous studies have assessed the impact of RIFR on key Mtb fitness indicators in vitro, the consequences of rpoB mutations for pathogenesis remain poorly understood. Here, we examine evidence from diverse bacterial systems indicating very specific effects of rpoB polymorphisms on cellular physiology, and consider these observations in the context of Mtb. In addition, we discuss the implications of these findings for the propagation of clinically relevant RIFR mutations. While our focus is on RIF, we also highlight results which suggest that drug-independent effects might apply to a broad range of resistance-associated mutations, especially in an obligate pathogen increasingly linked with multidrug resistance.