DIFFERENTIATION OF MYCOBACTERIUM-TUBERCULOSIS ISOLATES BY SPOLIGOTYPING AND IS6110 RESTRICTION-FRAGMENT-LENGTH-POLYMORPHISM

Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from 167 patients attending three London hospitals were analyzed by two techniques for strain differenti ation. A significant number of isolates that appeared identical with t he recently developed spoligotyping system could be distinguished from each other by IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism analysi s, with the latter technique demonstrating a generally higher level of discrimination, Spoligotyping, on the other hand, was particularly us eful for analysis of isolates with low IS6110 copy numbers, and use of the two techniques in tandem provided an optimal approach to the iden tification of clusters with epidemiological evidence consistent with r ecent transmission, Spoligotyping can be applied directly to clinical samples by PCR and provides an important tool for the rapid detection of nosocomial transmission of individual strains.