RFLP clusters of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains from the Indian Ocean Region: local and South Asian characteristics.

This is the first study describing the genetic polymorphism of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains in the Indian Ocean Region. Using IS6110 RFLP analysis, 475 M. tuberculosis isolates from Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius, Mozambique and La Reunion were compared. Of the 332 IS6110 profiles found, 43 were shared by clusters containing 2-65 strains. Six clusters were common to at least two countries. Of 52 families of strains with similar IS6110 profiles, 10 were common to at least two countries. Interestingly, another characteristic was the frequency (16.8%) of IS6110 single-copy strains. These strains could be distinguished using the DR marker. This preliminary evaluation suggests genetic similarity between the strains of the Indian Ocean Region. However, additional markers would be useful for epidemiological studies and to assess the ancient transmission of strains between countries of this region.

RFLP clusters of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains from the Indian Ocean Region: local and South Asian characteristics

This is the first study describing the genetic polymorphism of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains in the Indian Ocean Region. Using IS6110 RFLP analysis, 475 M. tuberculosis isolates from Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius, Mozambique and La Reunion were compared. Of the 332 IS6110 profiles found, 43 were shared by clusters containing 2-65 strains. Six clusters were common to at least two countries. Of 52 families of strains with similar IS6110 profiles, 10 were common to at least two countries. Interestingly, another characteristic was the frequency (16.8 percent) of IS6110 single-copy strains. These strains could be distinguished using the DR marker. This preliminary evaluation suggests genetic similarity between the strains of the Indian Ocean Region. However, additional markers would be useful for epidemiological studies and to assess the ancient transmission of strains between countries of this region.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex genetic diversity: mining the fourth international spoligotyping database (SpolDB4) for classification, population genetics and epidemiology.

BACKGROUND: The Direct Repeat locus of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) is a member of the CRISPR (Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) sequences family. Spoligotyping is the widely used PCR-based reverse-hybridization blotting technique that assays the genetic diversity of this locus and is useful both for clinical laboratory, molecular epidemiology, evolutionary and population genetics. It is easy, robust, cheap, and produces highly diverse portable numerical results, as the result of the combination of (1) Unique Events Polymorphism (UEP) (2) Insertion-Sequence-mediated genetic recombination. Genetic convergence, although rare, was also previously demonstrated. Three previous international spoligotype databases had partly revealed the global and local geographical structures of MTC bacilli populations, however, there was a need for the release of a new, more representative and extended, international spoligotyping database. RESULTS: The fourth international spoligotyping database, SpolDB4, describes 1939 shared-types (STs) representative of a total of 39,295 strains from 122 countries, which are tentatively classified into 62 clades/lineages using a mixed expert-based and bioinformatical approach. The SpolDB4 update adds 26 new potentially phylogeographically-specific MTC genotype families. It provides a clearer picture of the current MTC genomes diversity as well as on the relationships between the genetic attributes investigated (spoligotypes) and the infra-species classification and evolutionary history of the species. Indeed, an independent Naïve-Bayes mixture-model analysis has validated main of the previous supervised SpolDB3 classification results, confirming the usefulness of both supervised and unsupervised models as an approach to understand MTC population structure. Updated results on the epidemiological status of spoligotypes, as well as genetic prevalence maps on six main lineages are also shown. Our results suggests the existence of fine geographical genetic clines within MTC populations, that could mirror the passed and present Homo sapiens sapiens demographical and mycobacterial co-evolutionary history whose structure could be further reconstructed and modelled, thereby providing a large-scale conceptual framework of the global TB Epidemiologic Network. CONCLUSION: Our results broaden the knowledge of the global phylogeography of the MTC complex. SpolDB4 should be a very useful tool to better define the identity of a given MTC clinical isolate, and to better analyze the links between its current spreading and previous evolutionary history. The building and mining of extended MTC polymorphic genetic databases is in progress.

Usefulness of restriction fragment length polymorphism and spoligotyping for epidemiological studies of Mycobacterium bovis in Madagascar: description of new genotypes.

Tuberculosis is highly prevalent in cattle in Madagascar. An epidemiological study based on genotyping of Mycobacterium bovis and its transmission to humans was carried out. The restriction fragment length polymorphism (IS6110 and DR markers) and spoligotyping were used to assess the genetic diversity of strains from different regions of Madagascar. One of these strains was isolated from goat, the other strains were isolated from zebu cattle. Nine IS6110 profiles, 20 DR profiles and 12 spoligotypes were obtained. About 90% of all isolates gave a single IS6110 band at about 1.8 kb. Most strains had the same spoligotype. M. bovis strains commonly lack spacers 39-43, and all Malagasy strains also lacked spacers 3-5, 8-10 and 16. This pattern has not been reported elsewhere. DR was the most discriminatory of the three markers. The patterns obtained with the three markers were combined to identify 34 different genotypes, one of which was found in 35% of the strains. No region-specific M. bovis genotype was identified, but the genotyping of 18 M. bovis strains isolated from patients showed that the human and bovine strains were identical, suggesting possible human contamination from zebu cattle.

A study of spoligotyping-defined Mycobacterium tuberculosis clades in relation to the origin of peopling and the demographic history in Madagascar.

Despite well-developed tuberculosis (TB) control policies in Madagascar, the incidence of TB remains high and is estimated at about 100 new cases per 100000 inhabitants. This paper describes genetic characteristics of TB bacilli in Madagascar. Using an international spoligotyping database, SpolDB4, we also attempted to identify the origin of strains circulating in Madagascar. DNA polymorphism of 333 Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex isolates was assessed. A total of 301 isolates belonging to 60 spoligotyping-defined clusters were found, whereas 32 isolates harbored orphan patterns. By comparison with the international database, we identified a new genetic group of closely genetically related M. tuberculosis strains which we suggested to be specific from Madagascar. Most of them belonging to the East-African-Indian (EAI) superfamily of strains that are responsible for 14% of total TB cases (shared types ST1514-1525). These strains are closely related to the most prevalent shared type ST109, whose distribution is mainly confined to Madagascar. The observed distribution of genotypes shows that principal genetic group 1 strains (EAI, Beijing, CAS, Afri, "Manu") is high (35.4%) suggesting an ancient evolutionary history of tuberculosis in Madagascar, in relation to the origin of peopling and the demographic history.