The possibility to obtain DNA from smears is a valuable alternative to remedy the lack of samples when they are totally used for bacilloscopy; this technique solves the biosafety problem related to a possible accident with the transportation of flasks containing potentially transmissible clinical samples. Hence, the purpose of this study was to utilize the insertion sequence IS6110 for amplific...

Diagnosis of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex by direct PCR of mediastinal lymphnode DNA and microbiological tests were compared in cattle suspicious of bearing tuberculous-like lesions detected during slaughter. The PCR procedure applied on DNA samples (n=54) obtained by adding alpha -casein into the thiocyanate extraction mix was positive in 70% of the samples. PCR confirmed the identif...

The National Tuberculosis Genotyping and Surveillance Network was established in 1996 to perform a 5-year, prospective study of the usefulness of genotyping Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates to tuberculosis control programs. Seven sentinel sites identified all new cases of tuberculosis, collected information on patients and contacts, and obtained patient isolates. Seven genotyping laboratorie...

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...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the performance of laboratory diagnosis of tuberculosis, clinical samples underwent culture, species identification and drug susceptibility testing (DST). METHODS A total of 554 samples from 269 patients were tested for smear microscopy using Kinyoun stain. Culture was performed in Ogawa-Kudoh medium and species identification was performed using the IS6110 amplified re...

Rapid recognition of multidrug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a desirable goal for treatment of patients and protection of health care workers. DNA fingerprints produced with the insertion sequence IS6110 generate restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns that reliably identify M. tuberculosis complex strains. This report describes a rapid technique for RFLP t...

The obligatory human pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is the most important etiological factor of tuberculosis. Unfortunately, there is little information about genetic diversity of this pathogen. The main aim of this research was the estimation of genetic diversity of M. tuberculosis on the basis of various categories of DNA markers. The genome of 32 strains were scanned by DNA markers su...

The pncA gene mutations associated with pyrazinamide (PZA) resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex were determined in 26 PZA-resistant isolates in Japan. Of the 26 PZA-resistant isolates included, 21 were negative for pyrazinamidase (PZase). Of these, 20 isolates had various pncA mutations, resulting in alteration of primary amino acid sequence. However, 1 PZase-negative isolate did no...