A high prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) isolates that are genetically homogenous and from the Beijing family has been reported in Russia. To map TB transmission caused by these strains, new genotyping systems are needed. Mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units (MIRUs) offer the possibility of rapid PCR-based typing with comparable discrimination to IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorp...

DNA tandem repeats (TRs), also designated as satellite DNA, are inter- or intragenic nucleotide sequences that are repeated two or more times in a head-to-tail manner. Because TR tracts are prone to strand-slippage replication and recombination events that cause the TR copy number to increase or decrease, loci containing TRs are hypermutable. An increasing number of examples illustrate that bac...

Simplified multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) was developed using one-shot multiplex PCR for seven variable-number tandem repeats (VNTR) markers with high diversity capacity. MLVA, phage typing, and PFGE methods were applied on 34 diverse Salmonella Enteritidis isolates from human and non-human sources. MLVA detected allelic variations that helped to classify the S. En...

OBJECTIVES To compare M. tuberculosis complex genotypes from representative regions of the Czech Republic in order to estimate changes in strain prevalence and in the extent of imported drug-resistant tuberculosis. METHODS Primary M. tuberculosis complex isolates (n=155) and follow-up isolates (n=15) from 155 patients from the first half of 2004 (98 from Prague, 37 from South Moravia and 35 f...

It is unknown whether MIRU-VNTR (Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Unit-Variable Number of Tandem Repeat) is associated with drug resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The purpose of this study was to explore the ability of 24 MIRU loci to predict the drug resistance of Isoniazid (INH), Rifampicin (RFP), Streptomycin (SM), Ethambutol (EMB) and Pyrazinamide (PZA). We collected the drug r...

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) is the causal agent of Johne's disease or paratuberculosis of ruminants and has been associated with Crohn's disease in humans. In this study, the genotypes of MAP obtained so far in South American countries using a combination of the subtyping methods Mycobacterial Interspersed Repeats Units-Variable Number of Tandem Repeats (MIRU-VNTR) and Mul...