RESUMEN
AIM: Genotyping of B. pertussis strains isolated from pertussis patients in Moscow. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 53 strains of B. pertussis isolated from pertussis patients in Moscow in 2007 - 2010 as well as 3 vaccine strains currently used in Russia for the production of DTP vaccine were studied by multilocus sequencing (MLST) based on allele combinations of ptxA, ptxC and tcfA genes. RESULTS: A genetic characteristic of B. pertussis strains isolated from pertussis patients in Moscow by using MLST is presented. Allele profile analysis of the studied B. pertussis strains was performed, 4 sequence types (ST) were identified--ST1, ST2, ST3 and ST5, most of the circulating strains (86.7%) were shown to belong to ST5, equal percentage of cases (5.7%)--to ST2 and ST3, and 1.9%--to ST1, while 2 vaccine production strains belong to ST2 and 1 - to ST1. CONCLUSION: Clonal structure of contemporary Moscow strains was shown to be different from strain structure used for the production of DTP vaccine.