title: Genetic diversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Tibetans in Tibet, China.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious health problem in Tibet where Tibetans are the major ethnic group. Although genotyping of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) isolates is a valuable tool for TB control, our knowledge of population structure of M. tuberculosis circulating in Tibet is limited.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In our study, a total of 576 M. tuberculosis isolates from Tibetans in Tibet, China, were analyzed via spoligotyping and 24-locus MIRU-VNTR. The Beijing genotype was the most prevalent family (90.63%, n = 522). Shared-type (ST) 1 was the most dominant genotype (88.89%, n = 512). We found that there was no association between the Beijing genotype and sex, age and treatment status. In this sample collection, 7 of the 24 MIRU-VNTR loci were highly or moderately discriminative according to their Hunter-Gaston discriminatory index. An informative set of 12 loci had similar discriminatory power with 24 loci set.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The population structure of M. tuberculosis isolates in Tibetans is homogeneous and dominated by Beijing genotype. The analysis of 24-locus MIRU-VNTR data might be useful to select appropriate VNTR loci for the genotyping of M. tuberculosis.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Changping, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Haiyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Xiuqin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Ba
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sang
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lv
authors.forename: Zhiguang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Kanglin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D005260:Female; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018598:Minisatellite Repeats; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D010802:Phylogeny; D058974:Phylogeography; D015995:Prevalence; D018609:Tibet / Q000453:epidemiology; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial