Unusual mycobacterial interspersed repetitive-unit alleles in loci 580 and 4348 among Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates in Albania

摘要

The 24-locus mycobacterial interspersed repetitive-unit-variable-number tandem-repeat (MIRU-VNTR) typing method is considered the "gold standard" for the study of tuberculosis (TB) epidemiology. The protocols and the nomenclature for this technology have been fully standardized (1).Both the 580 locus (also known as exact tandem repeat D ETRD or MIRU 4) and 4348 locus (also known as MIRU 39) are included in the standard 24 loci used for MIRU-VNTR typing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) strains and consist of a variable number of repeat units of 11 and 53 bp, respectively. While locus 580 is included in the subset of 15 MIRU loci with the highest discriminatory power, locus 4348 is more conserved (2).