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Real-Time Molecular Epidemiology of Tuberculosis by Direct Genotyping of Smear-Positive Clinical Specimens

2012; American Society for Microbiology; Volume: 50; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1128/jcm.00132-12

1098-660X

María Alonso, Marta Herránz, Miguel Martínez‐Lirola, Milagros González‐Rivera, Emilio Bouza, Darı́o Garcı́a de Viedma,

Diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis

We applied MIRU-VNTR (mycobacterial interspersed repetitive-unit-variable-number tandem-repeat typing) to directly analyze the bacilli present in 61 stain-positive specimens from tuberculosis patients. A complete MIRU type (24 loci) was obtained for all but one (no amplification in one locus) of the specimens (98.4%), and the allelic values fully correlated with those obtained from the corresponding cultures. Our study is the first to demonstrate that real-time genotyping of Mycobacterium tuberculosis can be achieved, fully transforming the way in which molecular epidemiology techniques can be integrated into control programs.