Exploring the "Latin American Mediterranean" family and the RDRio lineage in Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Paraguay, Argentina and Venezuela.

BACKGROUND: The Latin American & Mediterranean (LAM) spoligotype family is one of the most successful genotype of Mycobacterium tuberculosis worldwide and particularly prevalent in South-America. Within this family, a sublineage named Region of Difference Rio (RDRio) was reported initially in Brazil and is characterized by a genomic deletion of about 26.3 kb. This lineage seems to show a specific adaptation to the Euro-Latin American population. In this context, we sought to evaluate the LAM family and the presence of the RDRio genotype in samples from three Latin American countries including Paraguay, Venezuela and Argentina. To detect LAM strains reliably we applied a typing scheme using spoligotyping, 12 loci MIRU-VNTR, the Ag85C103 SNP and the regions of difference RDRio and RD174. IS6110-RFLP results were also used when available. RESULTS: Genotyping of 413 M. tuberculosis isolates from three Latin-American countries detected LAM (46%) and the ill-defined T clade (16%) as the most frequent families. The highest clustering rate was detected in the sample population from the city of Caracas in Venezuela. We observed considerable differences in the presence of the RDRio lineage, with high frequency in Caracas-Venezuela (55%) and low frequency in Buenos Aires-Argentina (11%) and Paraguay (10%). The molecular markers (RD174, Ag85C103, MIRU02-MIRU40 signature) of the RDRio lineage were essentially confirmed. For the LAM family, the most polymorphic loci were MIRU40, MIRU31, MIRU10, MIRU26, MIRU16 and the least polymorphic MIRU24, MIRU20, MIRU04, MIRU23. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest a differential adaptation of LAM-sublineages in neighboring populations and that RDRio strains spread regionally with different rates of distribution. The Ag85C SNP and RDs (RD174, RDRio) tested in this study can in fact facilitate molecular epidemiological studies of LAM strains in endemic settings and low-income countries.

First insight into Mycobacterium tuberculosis genetic diversity in Paraguay.

BACKGROUND: We present a picture of the biodiversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Paraguay, an inland South American country harboring 5 million inhabitants with a tuberculosis notification rate of 38/100,000. RESULTS: A total of 220 strains collected throughout the country in 2003 were classified by spoligotyping into 79 different patterns. Spoligopatterns of 173 strains matched 51 shared international types (SITs) already present in an updated version of SpolDB4, the global spoligotype database at Pasteur Institute, Guadeloupe. Our study contributed to the database 13 new SITs and 15 orphan spoligopatterns. Frequencies of major M. tuberculosis spoligotype lineages in our sample were as follows: Latin-American & Mediterranean (LAM) 52.3%, Haarlem 18.2%, S clade 9.5%, T superfamily 8.6%, X clade 0.9% and Beijing clade 0.5%. Concordant clustering by IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and spoligotyping identified transmission in specific settings such as the Tacumbu jail in Asuncion and aboriginal communities in the Chaco. LAM genotypes were ubiquitous and predominated among both RFLP clusters and new patterns, suggesting ongoing transmission and adaptative evolution in Paraguay. We describe a new and successfully evolving clone of the Haarlem 3 sub-lineage, SIT2643, which is thus far restricted to Paraguay. We confirmed its clonality by RFLP and mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit (MIRU) typing; we named it "Tacumbu" after the jail where it was found to be spreading. One-fifth of the spoligopatterns in our study are rarely or never seen outside Paraguay and one-tenth do not fit within any of the major phylogenetic clades in SpolDB4. CONCLUSION: Lineages currently thriving in Paraguay may reflect local host-pathogen adaptation of strains introduced during past migrations from Europe.