title: Molecular Typing of Mycobacterium intracellulare Using Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis, Variable-Number Tandem-Repeat Analysis, Mycobacteria Interspersed Repetitive-Unit-Variable-Number Tandem Repeat Typing, and Multilocus Sequence Typing: Molecular Characterization and Comparison of Each Typing Methods.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Mycobacterium intracellulare is the major causative agent of nontuberculous mycobacteria-related pulmonary infections. The strain typing of M. intracellulare is important for the treatment and control of its infections. We compared the discrimination capacity and effective value of four different molecular typing methods.
  
  
  METHODS
  Antibiotic susceptibility testing, hsp65 and rpoB sequencing, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), multilocus sequence typing (MLST), mycobacteria interspersed repetitive-unit-variable-number tandem-repeat analysis (MIRU-VNTR), and VNTR assay targeting 44 M. intracellulare isolates obtained from patients with pulmonary infections were performed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All the antibiotic susceptibility patterns had no association with the molecular and sequence types tested in this study; however, the molecular and sequence types were related with each other. PFGE gave best results for discriminatory capacity, followed by VNTR, MLST, and MIRU-VNTR.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The high discriminatory power of PFGE, VNTR, and MLST is enough for differentiating between reinfection and relapse, as well as for other molecular epidemiological usages. The MLST could be regarded as a representative classification method, because it showed the clearest relation with the sequence types.
authors.affiliation: Division of Tuberculosis and Bacterial Respiratory Infections, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Osong, Korea.
authors.forename: Semi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jeon
authors.affiliation: Division of Tuberculosis and Bacterial Respiratory Infections, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Osong, Korea.
authors.forename: Nara
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: Division of Tuberculosis and Bacterial Respiratory Infections, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Osong, Korea.
authors.forename: Seungjik
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.affiliation: Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Asan Medical Center, College of Medicine, University of Ulsan, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Taesun
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shim
authors.affiliation: Division of Tuberculosis and Bacterial Respiratory Infections, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Osong, Korea.
authors.forename: Misun
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea ; Cancer Research Institute, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea ; Liver Research Institute, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Bum-Joon
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Division of Tuberculosis and Bacterial Respiratory Infections, Korea National Institute of Health, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Osong, Korea.
authors.forename: Seonghan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
keywords: Mycobacterium intracellulare; multilocus sequence typing; mycobacteria interspersed repetitive-unit-variable-number tandem-repeat analysis; pulsed-field gel electrophoresis; variable-number tandem-repeat analysis