Predominance of Central Asian strain (ST 26) in Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Balochistan by spoligotyping.

Muhammad Shafee,Andrew Whitelaw,Abdul Jabbar,Mohammad Zahid Mustafa,Irshad Ahmad,Zunera Tanveer,Ali Akbar,Ferhat Abbas,Simon G Patching,Muhammad Ashraf,Lemese Ah Tow

doi:10.3855/jidc.10803

Abstract

Tuberculosis is a chronic debilitating infectious disease causing a severe challenge to public health, especially in developing countries. The aim of this study was to examine genetic diversity in Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains circulating in the Balochistan region of Pakistan. One hundred isolates collected from patients visiting the Fatima Jinnah TB Hospital in Quetta were subjected to genotype analysis by spoligotyping. Three main genotypes were identified: Central Asian Strain 1 (CAS1) (n = 89), East African Indian (EAI) strain (n = 7) and Latin American Mediterranean (LAM) strain (n = 3). The CAS1 clade (ST 26) had high genetic diversity represented by seven different spoligopatterns, of which one had major predominace (n = 75). This is the first insight into the genotype of M. tuberculosis strains in the Balochistan region that might serve as a base line study for control of tuberculosis in the community.

Highlights

Tuberculosis is a chronic debilitating infectious disease causing a severe challenge to public health, especially in developing countries
Molecular based typing techniques for the causative Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) complex have emerged as effective tools based on variation in insertion sequences and repetitive genomic sequences [1,2,3]
M. tuberculosis has a highly conserved genome containing useful markers that can be exploited in different typing techniques, such as those using Insertion Sequence

Summary

Introduction

Tuberculosis is a chronic debilitating infectious disease causing a severe challenge to public health, especially in developing countries. The aim of this study was to examine genetic diversity in Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains circulating in the Balochistan region of Pakistan. Tuberculosis remains a major health concern throughout the world, especially in developing countries. This is despite effective treatments, diagnostic and preventive measures that have become available in the last few decades. Based on sequencing of M. tuberculosis strain H37Rv, the complete genome contains 4,411,539 base pairs with densely packed coding regions. It comprises approximately 4,000 protein coding regions and has a very high guanine and cytosine content of 65.6%. The genome is is rich in Shafee et al – Spoligotyping of M. tuberculosis in Pakistan

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Methods

Conclusion