The Epidemiological Significance and Temporal Stability of Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Units-Variable Number of Tandem Repeats-Based Method Applied to Mycobacterium tuberculosis in China

Introducing the Best Six Loci in Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Unit-Variable-Number Tandem Repeat (MIRU-VNTR) Typing for Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Genotyping

BACKGROUND

Tuberculosis (TB) still remains endemic worldwide making epidemiological studies essential to mitigating efforts implicated in identifying its source, controlling, and preventing the spread of dangerous strains amongst humans such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb).

METHODS

In this study, we sought to determine the 6 Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Unit-Variable-Number Tandem Repeat (MIRU-VNTR) loci with high discriminatory powers for Mtb genotyping as well as the loci with the highest and the lowest discriminatory powers for MIRU-VNTR. To conduct our search, we used several databases such as science direct, Embase (Elsevier), Web of Science, Scopus and Medline via PubMed. Searches were performed using key words including: Mycobacterium tuberculosis, MIRU-VNTR, Allele diversity, Genetic diversity and human patient. Finally, 56 articles were selected after filtering out titles, abstracts and full texts.

RESULTS

Loci with high discriminatory powers included MIRU10 and MIRU26, while MIRU2, MIRU20, MIRU24 and ETRD had poor discriminatory powers. According to previous data in the literature, the loci MIRU10, MIRU26, MIRU40, QUB 26, QUB 11b and Mtub21 have high discriminatory powers.

CONCLUSION

Therefore, these loci recommended for genotyping Mtb to save time and cost and to ensure the production of reliable results.