Molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium leprae as determined by structure-neighbor clustering.

ABSTRACT: It has proven challenging to investigate the molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium leprae, the causative agent of leprosy, due to difficulties with culturing of the organism and a lack of genetic heterogeneity between strains. Recently, a cost-effective panel of variable-number tandem-repeat (VNTR) markers has been developed. Use of this panel allows some of those limitations to be overcome and has allowed the genotyping of 475 M. leprae strains from six different countries. In the present report, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the relationships among the strains in order to investigate the patterns of transmission and migration of M. leprae. We find phylogenetic analysis to be inadequate and have developed an alternative method, structure-neighbor clustering, which assigns isola

SUBMITTER: Hall BG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2884520 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature