dIn previous experiments, replacing the 10-mg/kg of body weight daily dose of rifampin with 7.5 to 10 mg/kg of rifapentine in combinations containing isoniazid and pyrazinamide reduced the duration of treatment needed to cure tuberculosis in BALB/c mice by approximately 50% due to rifapentine's more potent activity and greater drug exposures obtained. In the present study, we performed dose-ranging comparisons of the bactericidal and sterilizing activities of rifampin and rifapentine, alone and in combination with isoniazid and pyrazinamide with or without ethambutol, in BALB/c mice and in C3HeB/FeJ mice, which develop necrotic lung granulomas after infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Each rifamycin demonstrated a significant increase in sterilizing activity with increasing dose. Rifapentine was roughly 4 times more potent in both mouse strains. These results reinforce the rationale for ongoing clinical trials to ascertain the highest well-tolerated doses of rifampin and rifapentine. This study also provides an important benchmark for the efficacy of the first-line regimen in C3HeB/FeJ mice, a strain in which the lung lesions observed after M. tuberculosis infection may better represent the pathology of human tuberculosis.T he rifamycins are key sterilizing drugs in the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) (2). Addition of rifampin (RIF, or R) to regimens based on isoniazid (INH, or H) and streptomycin reduced the duration of treatment necessary for cure of human TB from 18 or more months to 9 months, before the subsequent addition of pyrazinamide (PZA, or Z) reduced it to 6 months (3,4,12,13,43). Data from an in vitro hollow fiber model (19), animal models (22,49), and clinical studies (8,23,45) indicate RIF has dose-dependent bactericidal activity that is not optimized at the currently recommended 10-mg/kg of body weight (600 mg maximum) dose for adults (2). It follows that increasing rifamycin exposures may increase bactericidal and sterilizing activities and further shorten the duration of TB treatment (35). To this end, we have previously shown that replacing the 10-mg/kg daily dose of RIF with a 7.5-or 10-mg/kg daily dose of rifapentine (RPT, or P) in combination with INH and PZA reduces the duration of treatment needed to cure TB in mice by approximately 50%, owing to RPT's more potent antituberculosis activity and greater drug exposures obtained at a given dose (in mg/kg) (40, 41). A subsequent dose escalation trial in healthy volunteers showed daily RPT doses as high as 20 mg/kg were well tolerated (9). Daily regimens using RPT doses of 7.5 to 20 mg/kg in place of RIF are now under evaluation for efficacy, safety, and tolerability in at least 3 clinical trials (clinicaltrials.gov identifiers NCT00694629, NCT00728507, and NCT00814671).Unlike RPT, RIF is already in use throughout the world for treatment of TB. Despite 40 years of clinical use, studies to define the highest well-tolerated daily dose are only now under way (clinicaltrials.gov identifiers NCT00760149, NCT01392911, and NCT01408914). To deter...