Molecular Typing of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Isolated from Iranian Patients Using Highly Abundant Polymorphic GC-Rich-Repetitive Sequence

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) with more than 10 million new cases per year and one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide, is still one of the most important global health problems. Also, multi drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR) is a serious danger to public health. Understanding of the epidemiological pattern of mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), Estimates of recent transmission and recurrence of infection, it is possible with molecular typing methods. The present study was performed aiming to track and determine the type of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection, as well as its relationship with demographic factors, using PGRS-RFLP. Materials and Methods: In this study, 90 samples collected from TB patients from the North West provinces of Iran, Molecular typing by Characterization highly abundant polymorphic GC-rich-repetitive sequence. Investigated Demographic factors associated with the transmission of the disease. Results: All isolates were grouped into 44 clusters 28types (33.3%) of the subspecies were in unique stains and 66.7% (from 56 patients) had clustered isolates. The largest cluster contained 8 isolates (9.52%) was the West provinces of Iran. Conclusion: Genetic variation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is high in this region. The rate of recent transmission based on clustering was unexpected (The global average is 30%-40%). The recent transmission was more dynamic in the west than northwest Iran. Clustering based on PGRS-RFLP can demonstrate the high correlation between molecular and classic information. In addition, the significant relationship between vaccination record and clustering highlights the necessity to conduct more extensive studies.