title: Mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit typing in Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Sichuan province in China.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Emergence and spread of drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a serious threat to tuberculosis (TB) control programme. Therefore, the objective of this study was to genotype drug-resistant M. tuberculosis strains isolated from patients in Sichuan, China, using Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Units (MIRU) for epidemiological analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  Drug-resistance testing of M. tuberculosis isolates from pulmonary TB patients was confirmed by proportion method. Twelve MIRU loci were analyzed on 80 drug-resistant and 9 susceptible isolates by polymerase chain reaction and agarose gel electrophoresis. Hunter-Gaston discriminatory index (HGI) values were determined for each 12 MIRU loci for the evaluation of their discrimination power.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among 12 MIRU loci examined, polymorphic bands could be generated on 11 loci. Sixty five isolates had distinct MIRU patterns, while other 24 belonged to 8 clusters and resistant to at least one anti-TB drug tested. The association between the MIRU patterns and the mutation patterns of drug-resistance relevant target genes was not significant among the drug-resistant isolates.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results showed that with a satisfactory discrimination power exhibited, the 12 loci based MIRU typing could be a valuable tool for epidemiological studies in M. tuberculosis isolates from Sichuan.
authors: College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Sichuan, China.
authors: Jian-Hua
authors: JH
authors: Guo
authors: Wen-Liang
authors: WL
authors: Xiang
authors: Geng
authors: G
authors: Zhang
authors: Tao
authors: T
authors: Luo
authors: Ning
authors: N
authors: Xie
authors: Zhi-Rong
authors: ZR
authors: Yang
authors: Qun
authors: Q
authors: Sun
mesh_terms: D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D004587:Electrophoresis, Agar Gel; D005787:Gene Frequency; D056426:Genetic Loci / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D020071:Interspersed Repetitive Sequences / Q000235:genetics*; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D018088:Tuberculosis, Multidrug-Resistant / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000382:microbiology*