The role ofTB-resuscitation promoting factor in culture of mycobacterium tuberculosis ZHENG

：Objective To explore therole of TB-resuscitation promoting factor proteins ( TB-RPFs )in culture of mycobacteriumtuberculosis. Methods 42 sputum samples, 8 samples of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid ( BALF) and 25 samples of pleural fluid for tuberculosis patients were collected .All sampleswere treated with 4%NaOH, washed with PBS and then suspended. Each sample was divided intocontrol group and RPF group. Control group was cultured in MGIT, RPF group was culturedwith five types of TB-RPFs in MGIT. All samples were cultured in the automatedmycobacteria testing M960 system.The cultivation time for positive cultures was recordedand the positive cultures were used to identify mycobacterium strains. Results Thepositive rate of sputum culture was 42.86% in the RPF group and 45.24% in the controlgroup; that of BALF was 37.5% and 62.5%, respectively; and the positive rate of pleuralfluid was 20% in both groups. There were no significant differences between the twogroups. Of all the positive samples, 9 had the same days for positive results.6 samples (3 pleural fluid, 2 sputum, and 1 BALF ) were reported positive earlier in the RPF groupthan the control group, with an average length of 4.33 days but,9 were reported positivelater in the RPF group group with an average length of 1.11 days. 3 samples were culturedpositive in the control group but negative in the RPF group.Conclusions There is no enoughevidence to prove that TB-RPFs can improve the positive rate for mycobacterium culture insputum, BALF and pleural fluid samples. But TB-RPFs significantly shorten the positiveculture time in pleural fluid. The role of TB-RPFs for culturing mycobacterium indifferent samples needs to be further studied.