Tuberculosis (TB) is still one of the most serious threats tohuman health around the world. Recently, the dramatic increase of drug-resistant TB has caused an important problemfor disease control due to the ineffectiveness of treatment andthe transmission of drug-resistant strains (1, 17). The traditional phenotypic drug susceptibility tests pose serious delaysin the detection of resistance due to the extremely slow growthof M. tuberculosis. Rapid diagnosis of drug resistance is essential in order to initiate effective antibiotic therapies and prevent the transmission of drug-resistant strains.