Dataset Information

Evidence for recombination in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

ABSTRACT: Due to its mostly isolated living environment, Mycobacterium tuberculosis is generally believed to be highly clonal, and thus recombination between different strains must be rare and is not critical for the survival of the species. To investigate the roles recombination could have possibly played in the evolution of M. tuberculosis, an analysis was conducted on previously determined genotypes of 36 synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 3,320 M. tuberculosis isolates. The results confirmed the predominant clonal structure of the M. tuberculosis population. However, recombination between different strains was also suggested. To further resolve the issue, 175 intergenic SNPs and 234 synonymous SNPs were genotyped in 37 selected representative strains. A clear mosaic polymorphic pattern ahead of the MT0105 locus encoding a PPE (Pro-Pro-Glu) protein was obtained, which is most likely a result of recombination hot spot. Given that PPE proteins are thought to be critical in host-pathogen interactions, we hypothesize that recombination has been influential in the history of M. tuberculosis and possibly a major contributor to the diversity observed ahead of the MT0105 locus.

SUBMITTER: Liu X

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1698211 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Evidence for recombination in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Liu Xiaoming X Gutacker Michaela M MM Musser James M JM Fu Yun-Xin YX

Journal of bacteriology 20060922 23

Due to its mostly isolated living environment, Mycobacterium tuberculosis is generally believed to be highly clonal, and thus recombination between different strains must be rare and is not critical for the survival of the species. To investigate the roles recombination could have possibly played in the evolution of M. tuberculosis, an analysis was conducted on previously determined genotypes of 36 synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 3,320 M. tuberculosis isolates. The results c ...[more]

PMID: 16997954

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundIn current epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB), heterogeneity in infectiousness among TB patients is a challenge, which is not well studied. We aimed to quantify this heterogeneity and the presence of "super-spreading" events that can assist in designing optimal public health interventions.MethodsTB epidemiologic investigation data notified between 1 January 2005 and 31 December 2015 from Victoria, Australia were used to quantify TB patients' heterogeneity in infectiousness and super-spreading events. We fitted a negative binomial offspring distribution (NBD) for the number of secondary infections and secondary active TB disease each TB patient produced. The dispersion parameter, k, of the NBD measures the level of heterogeneity, where low values of k (e.g. k?<?1) indicate over-dispersion. Super-spreading was defined as patients causing as many or more secondary infections as the 99th centile of an equivalent homogeneous distribution. Contact infection was determined based on a tuberculin skin test (TST) result of ?10?mm. A NBD model was fitted to identify index characteristics that were associated with the number of contacts infected and risk ratios (RRs) were used to quantify the strength of this association.ResultsThere were 4190 (2312 pulmonary and 1878 extrapulmonary) index TB patients and 18,030 contacts. A total of 15,522 contacts were tested with TST, of whom 3213 had a result of ?10?mm. The dispersion parameter, k for secondary infections was estimated at 0.16 (95%CI 0.14-0.17) and there were 414 (9.9%) super-spreading events. From the 3213 secondary infections, 2415 (75.2%) were due to super-spreading events. There were 226 contacts who developed active TB disease and a higher level of heterogeneity was found for this outcome than for secondary infection, with k estimated at 0.036 (95%CI 0.025-0.046). In regression analyses, we found that infectiousness was greater among index patients found by clinical presentation and those with bacteriological confirmation.ConclusionTB transmission is highly over dispersed and super-spreading events are responsible for a substantial majority of secondary infections. Heterogeneity of transmission and super-spreading are critical issues to consider in the design of interventions and models of TB transmission dynamics.

Dataset Information

Evidence for recombination in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Publications

Evidence for recombination in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets