| Abstract: | Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectocontagious respiratory disease caused by membersof the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. A 7 base pair (bp)deletion in the locus polyketide synthase(pks)15/1 is described as polymorphic among members of theM. tuberculosis complex, enabling the identification ofEuro-American, Indo-Oceanic and Asian lineages. The aim of this study was tocharacterise this locus in TB isolates from Mexico. One hundredtwenty clinical isolates were recovered from the states of Veracruz and Estadode Mexico. We determined the nucleotide sequence of a ± 400 bp fragment of thelocus pks15/1, while genotypic characterisation wasperformed by spoligotyping. One hundred and fifty isolates contained the 7 bpdeletion, while five had the wild type locus. Lineages X (22%),LAM (18%) and T (17%) were the most frequent; only three (2%) of the isolateswere identified as Beijing and two (1%) EAI-Manila. The wild typepks15/1 locus was observed in all Asian lineage isolatestested. Our results confirm the utility of locus pks15/1 as amolecular marker for identifying Asian lineages of the M.tuberculosis complex. This marker could be of great value in theepidemiological surveillance of TB, especially in countries like Mexico, wherethe prevalence of such lineages is unknown. |
