BMC Microbiology (Jul 2010)

Molecular diversity of <it>Mycobacterium tuberculosis </it>isolates from patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in Mozambique

  • Hill Véronique,
  • Miotto Paolo,
  • Cuna Zaina,
  • Gudo Paula S,
  • Pennhag Alexandra,
  • Ghebremichael Solomon,
  • Groenheit Ramona,
  • Machado Adelina,
  • Viegas Sofia O,
  • Marrufo Tatiana,
  • Cirillo Daniela M,
  • Rastogi Nalin,
  • Källenius Gunilla,
  • Koivula Tuija

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-10-195
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
p. 195

Abstract

Read online

Abstract Background Mozambique is one of the countries with the highest burden of tuberculosis (TB) in Sub-Saharan Africa, and information on the predominant genotypes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis circulating in the country are important to better understand the epidemic. This study determined the predominant strain lineages that cause TB in Mozambique. Results A total of 445 M. tuberculosis isolates from seven different provinces of Mozambique were characterized by spoligotyping and resulting profiles were compared with the international spoligotyping database SITVIT2. The four most predominant lineages observed were: the Latin-American Mediterranean (LAM, n = 165 or 37%); the East African-Indian (EAI, n = 132 or 29.7%); an evolutionary recent but yet ill-defined T clade, (n = 52 or 11.6%); and the globally-emerging Beijing clone, (n = 31 or 7%). A high spoligotype diversity was found for the EAI, LAM and T lineages. Conclusions The TB epidemic in Mozambique is caused by a wide diversity of spoligotypes with predominance of LAM, EAI, T and Beijing lineages.