Tracing transmission of tuberculosis by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis within same family & neighbourhood.

Molecular epidemiology that integrates molecular approaches into the convention epidemiologic investigations has proved quite useful in tracing the transmission of drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis in USA. Molecular epidemiological tools for tuberculosis include both restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) as well as PCR methods. The most useful methods are the IS 6110 RFLP analysis and the two PCR-based methodsspoligolytyping and mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit (MIRU) analysis. In our previous report, the typing of Indian isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis using an arbitrary primer 986 FP, was found to be reproducible and promising to establish similarity in profiles, and clustering was found among isolates from Ranchi, New Delhi and Chandigarh. In this report we have focused on the application of this system on analysis of M. tuberculosis isolates from a small group of patients living in two closely located slum areas of Agra city in north India to find out its utility in rapid discrimination of isolates.