Study of Mycobacterium tuberculosis polymorphism in North West of Iran by VNTR-ETR method

Abstract

Among diverse infectious agents Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of adult deaths. One of the genetic fingerprinting techniques to study the epidemiology of TB is VNTR (Variable Number Tandem Repeat). The purpose of this study was to determine the diversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) isolates from patients in Azerbaijan, Iran by VNTR-ETR method. Methods: We used the VNTR-ETR method to analyze the genotypes of M. tuberculosis isolates. Forty-seven isolates were collected from pulmonary and extra pulmonary TB patients from April 2013 to February 2015 from Tabriz Research Center of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. Three loci ETR-A, ETR-B, ETR-C of VNTR patterns were studied. Patient records were checked to determine the relationships between the data and M. tuberculosis diversities. Results: Among the 47 isolates, 45 separate VNTR-ETR patterns consist of 9 clusters, 24 non-cluster (unique patterns), and no locus was observed in two samples. Diabetes and household contact patients identified as important risk factors for TB in our subjects with unique patterns.