Morphological variability and cell-wall deficiency in Mycobacterium tuberculosis 'heteroresistant' strains.

Abstract

The L-form transformation processes, observed both in clinical heteroresistant isolates containing mixed populations of Mycobacterium tuberculosis organisms with different resistance gene genotypes and in the isolated resistant (mutant) clones, indicate a possible link between resistance and cell-wall deficient L-phase states and suggest one of the possible mechanisms by which resistant mutants are able to survive in vivo.