title: [Study on VNTR diversity of clinical Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Qinghai].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the variable number tandem repeats (VNTR) genetic polymorphisms, genotyping and distribution pattern of clinical Mycobacterium (M.) tuberculosis isolates from Qinghai province.
  
  
  METHODS
  The clinical M. tuberculosis strains isolated from the patients with tuberculosis and related background data were collected from Qinghai Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 to 2012. Genotyping was conducted by using multiple locus VNTR analysis (MLVA). Genomic DNA was extracted and 15 VNTR loci were amplified with PCR and the PCR products were detected with gel electrophoresis. The VNTR diversity and clusters of genotyping were analyzed with BioNumerics (Version 5.0).
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 251 clinical M. tuberculosis isolates were analyzed with 15 VNTR loci showing that there were great genetic diversity in these isolates. Six of the 15 VNTR loci, showed that the Hunter-Gaston index (HGI) were higher than 0.6, in which the highest resolution was MIRU26. The clusters of genotyping showed that these isolates could be categorized into four gene clusters and 238 genotypes. The four gene clusters accounted for 4.9%, 91.9%, 1.6% and 1.6% of the clinical isolates, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results showed that there is great variety of VNTR genetic polymorphisms in clinical M. tuberculosis isolates in Qinghai province.
authors.affiliation: Medical School of Qinghai University, Xining 810001, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Communicable Disease Prevention and Control, Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
authors.forename: Haican
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Medical School of Qinghai University, Xining 810001, China; Email: kristy538@163.com.
authors.forename: Zhaofen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Qinghai Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
authors.forename: Yongcheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Medical School of Qinghai University, Xining 810001, China.
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Su
authors.affiliation: Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Qinghai Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
authors.forename: Mingxia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Communicable Disease Prevention and Control, Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
authors.forename: Kanglin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.affiliation: Medical School of Qinghai University, Xining 810001, China.
authors.forename: Shou
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Communicable Disease Prevention and Control, Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
authors.forename: Xiuqin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Medical School of Qinghai University, Xining 810001, China.
authors.forename: Shugen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Qu
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D018598:Minisatellite Repeats; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000235:genetics*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000382:microbiology
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial