China's tuberculosis epidemic stems from historical expansion of four strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

ABSTRACT: A small number of high-burden countries account for the majority of tuberculosis cases worldwide. Detailed data are lacking from these regions. To explore the evolutionary history of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in China-the country with the third highest tuberculosis burden-we analysed a countrywide collection of 4,578 isolates. Little genetic diversity was detected, with 99.4% of the bacterial population belonging to lineage 2 and three sublineages of lineage 4. The deeply rooted phylogenetic positions and geographic restriction of these four genotypes indicate that their populations expanded in situ following a small number of introductions to China. Coalescent analyses suggest that these bacterial subpopulations emerged in China around 1,000 years ago, and expanded in parallel from the t

SUBMITTER: Liu Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6295914 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature