Genetic diversity of Francisella tularensis subspecies holarctica strains isolated in Japan.
The recently developed MLVA has high discriminatory power for the typing of individual strains or isolates of Francisella tularensis. In the present study, MLVA was applied to 33 Japanese F. tularensis subspecies holarctica strains to examine the genetic diversity of F. tularensis isolated. Among the seven VNTR loci analyzed, Ft-M2, Ft-M10, and Ft-M20 loci showed high genetic polymorphism in Japanese strains, whereas Ft-M3 was most variable in non-Japanese strains. These results provide novel extended information about the genomic diversity among the strains of F. tularensis ssp. holarctica distributed in Japan and enable determination of whether a given isolate is indigenous to Japan by examining these loci using MLVA.
Department of Veterinary Science, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan. esperanz@nih.go.jp
Osamu
O
Fujita
Akihiko
A
Uda
Akitoyo
A
Hotta
Akiko
A
Okutani
Satoshi
S
Inoue
Kiyoshi
K
Tanabayashi
Akio
A
Yamada
D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics*; D004587:Electrophoresis, Agar Gel; D005604:Francisella tularensis / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D014406:Tularemia / Q000382:microbiology
D004269:DNA, Bacterial