[Molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis].
Tuberculosis is one of the ancient diseases with a long history of afflicting mankind. The incidence rate of tuberculosis in Japan, which is gradually decreasing, is the highest among the industrial countries. But it may be re-emerging according to the situations around Japanese tuberculosis policies. Especially, the problems of the extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains of tuberculosis disease have appeared in wealthy countries, also in Japan. We must focus attention on how to decrease the scourge. One of the tools to trace and prevent the development of tuberculosis, especially, the XDR strains is molecular epidemiology. Research of molecular epidemiology has expanded to study tuberculosis transmission, re-activation and re-infection based on DNA fingerprinting, such as IS6110 RFLP, spoligotyping, and VNTR. The global scale and molecular epidemiology of the XDR strains of tuberculosis require urgent assessment. The molecular epidemiology can be applied in clinical practice. We showed some examples about usefulness of the clinical application of molecular epidemiology, especially using VNTR. Now, we can use a various kinds of DNA fingerprinting. Each method has its own respective merits and demerits. So, it is important to select molecular epidemiology method according to the purpose.
Matsumoto
Tomoshige
T
Department of Clinical Research and Development, Osaka Prefectural Hospital Organization Osaka Prefectural Medical Center for Respiratory and Allergic Diseases, Japan. tom_matsumoto@sutv.zaq.ne.jp
D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D018598:Minisatellite Repeats; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D018088:Tuberculosis, Multidrug-Resistant / Q000453:epidemiology