A quantitative and efficient approach to select MIRU-VNTR loci based on accumulation of the percentage differences of strains for discriminating divergent Mycobacterium tuberculosis sublineages

作者：Pan, Xin-Ling; Zhang, Chun-Lei; Nakajima, Chie; Fu, Jin; Shao, Chang-Xia; Zhao, Li-Na; Cui, Jia-Yi; Jiao, Na; Fan, Chang-Long; Suzuki, Yasuhiko; Hattori, Toshio; Li, Di^*; Ling, Hong^*

来源：Emerging Microbes & Infections, 2017, 6(7): e68.

DOI：10.1038/emi.2017.58

• Beijing genotype
• Mycobacterium tuberculosis
• mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units (MIRU)-variable number tandem repeat (VNTR)
• sublineage

Although several optimal mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units-variable number tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR) loci have been suggested for genotyping homogenous Mycobacterium tuberculosis, including the Beijing genotype, a more efficient and convenient selection strategy for identifying optimal VNTR loci is needed. Here 281 M. tuberculosis isolates were analyzed. Beijing genotype and non-Beijing genotypes were identified, as well as Beijing sublineages, according to single nucleotide polymorphisms. A total of 22 MIRU-VNTR loci were used for genotyping. To efficiently select optimal MIRU-VNTR loci, we established accumulations of percentage differences (APDs) between the strains among the different genotypes. In addition, we constructed a minimum spanning tree for clustering analysis of the VNTR profiles. Our findings showed that eight MIRU-VNTR loci displayed disparities in h values of >= 0.2 between the Beijing genotype and non-Beijing genotype isolates. To efficiently discriminate Beijing and non-Beijing genotypes, an optimal VNTR set was established by adding loci with APDs ranging from 87.2% to 58.8%, resulting in the construction of a nine-locus set. We also found that QUB11a is a powerful locus for separating ST10s (including ST10, STF and STCH1) and ST22s (including ST22 and ST8) strains, whereas a combination of QUB11a, QUB4156, QUB18, Mtub21 and QUB26 could efficiently discriminate Beijing sublineages. Our findings suggested that two nine-locus sets were not only efficient for distinguishing the Beijing genotype from non-Beijing genotype strains, but were also suitable for sublineage genotyping with different discriminatory powers. These results indicate that APD represents a quantitative and efficient approach for selecting MIRU-VNTR loci to discriminate between divergent M. tuberculosis sublineages.

• 出版日期2017-7-26
• 单位哈尔滨医科大学