Although tuberculosis is still a public health problem in Mexico, there is little information about the genetic characteristics of the isolates. In the present study, we analyzed by spoligotyping 180 Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates from the urban area of Monterrey, Mexico, including drug-susceptible and drug-resistant isolates. The spoligotype patterns were compared with those in t...

Some sites of extrapulmonary tuberculosis and focal complications of brucellosis are very difficult to differentiate clinically, radiologically, and even histopathologically. Conventional microbiological methods for the diagnosis of extrapulmonary tuberculosis and complicated brucellosis not only lack adequate sensitivity, they are also time consuming, which could lead to an unfavourable progno...

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a contagious agent that causes tuberculosis. A specific type (called the K cluster) of M. tuberculosis with 10 copies of IS6110 in restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) has been found in about 4% of M. tuberculosis isolates in Korea. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of M. tuberculosis Korean strain KIT87190 belonging to the K cluster.

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis is endemic to developing countries like India. Though the whole genome sequences of the type strain M. tuberculosis H37Rv and the clinical strain M. tuberculosis CDC1551 are available, the clinical isolates from India have not been studied extensively at the genome level. This study was carried out in order to have a better understanding of isolates from Kerala, a state ...

BACKGROUND The detection of mycobacterial DNA in clinical samples on the basis of the polymerase chain reaction is a promising approach for the rapid diagnosis of tuberculous infections. No consensus exists, however, about which protocols are most sensitive, and the usefulness of this approach in the diagnosis of tuberculous effusions has been assessed in few patients. METHODS The sensitivity...

Improved access to effective tests for diagnosing tuberculosis (TB) has been designated a public health priority by the World Health Organisation. In high burden TB countries nucleic acid based TB tests have been restricted to centralised laboratories and specialised research settings. Requirements such as a constant electrical supply, air conditioning and skilled, computer literate operators p...

In order to study polymorphisms of the DNA insertion sequence 6110 (IS6110) in Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains isolated from Colombian patients, together with resistance to antituberculous medications in the Department of Quindío, Colombia, a prospective study was conducted using a consecutive sample of 59 patients with symptomatic pulmonary tuberculosis whose cases had been confirmed by bac...

Continuous-time linear birth-death-immigration (BDI) processes are frequently used in ecology and epidemiology to model stochastic dynamics of the population of interest. In clinical settings, multiple birth-death processes can describe disease trajectories of individual patients, allowing for estimation of the effects of individual covariates on the birth and death rates of the process. Such e...

To the Editor: Molecular typing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains isolated in several countries in recent years has shown that a group of strains known as " Beijing " is widespread around the world (1). The Beijing group of M. tuberculosis has been associated with drug resistance; one multidrug-resistant strain, designated " W, " was found in New York City in the early 1990s and caused larg...