Monitoring of macrolide resistanceassociated mutations in Mycoplasma genitalium in Russia

Objective. To determine spectrum and prevalence of genetic determinants of resistance to macrolides in Mycoplasma genitalium in a Russian patient population. Materials and Methods. A total of 873 M. genitalium-positive samples from five geographical regions of Russia were investigated over the period of 2009–2019 using the previously developed protocol of real-time polymerase chain reaction (allows detecting any nucleotide substitutions in the 23S rRNA gene of M. genitalium at positions 2058, 2059, and 2611). The results were confirmed using Sanger sequencing. Results. The most frequent mutations associated with resistance to macrolides in M. genitalium were the following: A2058G (60.5%) and A2059G (30.2%). The relatively rare mutations were A2058T (7%) and C2611T (2.3%). In the studied period, there was no trend to increase in frequency of mutations associated with resistance to macrolides. The study results are presented as an open project on the AMRcloud platform (https://amrcloud.net/ru/project/demares/). Conclusions. Our data emphasize a need to introduce regular screening of M. genitalium-positive samples for the presence of macrolide resistance-associated mutations into clinical practice.