Genetic diversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex in Jos, Nigeria.
BACKGROUND
Nigeria has a high tuberculosis incidence, and genotyping studies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex (MTC) in the country are necessary in order to improve our understanding of the epidemic.


METHODS
Isolates of MTC were isolated from cases of pulmonary tuberculosis in Jos, North Central region of Nigeria during 2006-2008. Drug susceptibility test (DST) was performed on 77 of 111 isolates by proportion method on Lowenstein Jensen (LJ) slope while genotyping of mycobacterial DNA was performed by spoligotyping. The SpolDB4 database and the model-based program 'spotclust' were used to assign isolates to families, subfamilies and variants.


RESULTS
A total of 111 pulmonary isolates from consecutive tuberculosis patients in the city of Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria were spoligotyped. A total of 84 (76%) of the isolates belonged to the Latin American Mediterranean (LAM) family. Of these, 78 isolates were assigned to the LAM10 lineage. Among these, 66 exhibited identical spoligopatterns. Drug susceptibility profiles obtained were not consistently associated with any spoligopattern.


CONCLUSIONS
The dominance of few M. tuberculosis lineages suggests either a high rate of transmission, frequent import of closely related strains, or a highly conserved genotype. It remains to be confirmed whether the predominance of identical LAM10 represent an outbreak.Spoligotyping was useful to gain an overall understanding of the local TB epidemic. This study demonstrated that the incidence of TB in Jos, Nigeria may be caused by a few successful M. tuberculosis families, dominated by the LAM10 family.
Ani
Agatha
A
Division of Infectious Disease Control, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway.
Bruvik
Torbjørn
T
Okoh
Yetunde
Y
Agaba
Patricia
P
Agbaji
Oche
O
Idoko
John
J
Dahle
Ulf R
UR
D000995:Antitubercular Agents; D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D009549:Nigeria / Q000453:epidemiology; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology*
D000995:Antitubercular Agents; D004269:DNA, Bacterial