Asho Ali, Zahra Hasan, Rumina Hasan.
Molecular Epidemiology of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis.
Infect Dis J Jan ;17(2):61-5.

Despite BCG vaccination and effective antituberculous therapy (ATT), TB causes 3 million deaths worldwide. Multidrug resistant (MDR) TB specially is on rise globally. The global distribution of TB cases is skewed heavily towards developing countries. Pakistan together with other Asian countries; such as China, India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, makes up over 50 percent of the global burden of the TB cases. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) is the causative agent of tuberculosis. Comparative genome sequencing of MTB strains revealed that MTB complex with highly conserved genome has polymorphic genomic regions. This polymorphism in MTB genome has led towards the development of several molecular typing methods for MTB such as IS6110 based restriction fragment polymorphism (RFLP), spoligotyping, Polymorphic GC-rich sequence genotyping (PGRS) and variable number of tandem repeat-Mycobacterial interspersed Repetitive Unit (VNTRMIRU) typing methods. Utility of these genetic tools to study the epidemiology of infectious diseases has introduced the concept of molecular epidemiology. IS6110-RFLP, spoligotyping and VNTR-MIRU typing methods have been used for genotyping of MTB strains from all over Pakistan which revealed Central Asian Strain and Beijing strain as predominant strains types amongst our isolates. This review describes the utility of these molecular typing methods for epidemiological studies for strain differentiation and disease transmission of MTB.

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