Abstract
Mycoplasma pneumoniae is one of the major respiratory bacterial pathogens that cause pneumonia in humans. Multiple-locus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis (MLVA) is currently the most discriminative method for typing M. pneumoniae strains. To better understand the epidemic of M. pneumoniae-related pneumonia in pediatric patients in Beijing, China, we performed MLVA analysis on 118 specimens collected during an epidemic from 2010–2012. Eleven distinct MLVA types were identified, including four novel types. There was no obvious association of macrolide resistance with any of the genotypes. Considering the instability of VNTR locus Mpn1, we propose an amended MLVA nomenclature system based on the remaining four VNTR loci.
Highlights
Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a common respiratory bacterial pathogen that causes pneumonia in humans, especially in children and young adults [1,2]
Studies show that an epidemic has been spreading in many countries since 2010 [5,6,7,8,9,10]
The infection rate increased from late 2011, and was highest in August (28.8%) of 2011, and January (29.5%), August (38.3%), September (37.6%), October (26.7%), November (34.6%), and December (28.8%) of 2012 (Fig. 1)
Summary
Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a common respiratory bacterial pathogen that causes pneumonia in humans, especially in children and young adults [1,2]. To study an epidemic and identify the source of an outbreak, it is important to type the pathogenic strains rapidly and accurately. Molecular typing of the M. pneumoniae P1 gene has been the most common genotyping method in the past 30 years. A multiple-locus variable-number tandem-repeat (VNTR) analysis (MLVA) for molecular typing of M. pneumoniae was developed [19]. Twenty-six MLVA types (A–Z) were first introduced by typing 265 M. pneumoniae strains using five VNTR loci (Mpn, Mpn). Twenty-six MLVA types (A–Z) were first introduced by typing 265 M. pneumoniae strains using five VNTR loci (Mpn, Mpn13–16) This highly-discriminatory method was quickly adapted by other research groups, and at least 18 novel types have been reported [20,5,6,21,22,8,23]. Locus Mpn is unstable in both clinical strains and in laboratory passages, and most of the novel types came from variations in Mpn1 [20,8,23]. With more MLVA genotypes identified, the current M. pneumoniae MLVA nomenclature system needs to be amended
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