title: [Evaluation of different sets of variable number of tandem repeats ioci for genotyping Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates in China].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) typing method that is suitable for molecular epidemiological study of tuberculosis in China.
  
  
  METHODS
  We systematically evaluated the commonly used VNTR typing methods, including 4 methods (MIRU-12, VNTR-15/VNTR-24 and VNTR "24+4") proposed by foreign colleagues and 2 methods (VNTR-L15 and VNTR"9+3") developed by domestic researchers using population-based collection of 891 clinical isolates from 5 provinces across the country.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The order (from high to low) of discriminatory power for the 6 VNTR typing methods was VNTR"24+4", VNTR"9+3", VNTR-24, VNTR-15, VNTR-L15 and MIRU-12. The discriminatory power of VNTR"9+3" was comparable with VNTR"24+4" and higher than that of VNTR-15/24. The concordance for defining clustered and unique genotypes between VNTR"9+3" and VNTR"24+4" was 96.59%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that VNTR"9+3" is a suitable method for molecular typing of M. tuberculosis in China by considering its high discriminatory power, high consistency with VNTR"24+4" and relative small number of VNTR locus.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Mei
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Chongguang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Qingyun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China; Email: qgao99@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Gao
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D018598:Minisatellite Repeats; D058889:Molecular Typing; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis; D014376:Tuberculosis