Restricted structural gene polymorphism in the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex indicates evolutionarily recent global dissemination

Srinand Sreevatsan, Xi Pan, Kathryn E. Stockbauer, Nancy D. Connell, Barry N. Kreiswirth, Thomas S. Whittam, James M. Musser

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

861 Scopus citations

Abstract

One-third of humans are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis. Sequence analysis of two megabases in 26 structural genes or loci in strains recovered globally discovered a striking reduction of silent nucleotide substitutions compared with other human bacterial pathogens. The lack of neutral mutations in structural genes indicates that M. tuberculosis is evolutionarily young and has recently spread globally. Species diversity is largely caused by rapidly evolving insertion sequences, which means that mobile element movement is a fundamental process generating genomic variation in this pathogen. Three genetic groups of M. tuberculosis were identified based on two polymorphisms that occur at high frequency in the genes encoding catalase-peroxidase and the A subunit of gyrase. Group 1 organisms are evolutionarily old and allied with M. boris, the cause of bovine tuberculosis. A subset of several distinct insertion sequence IS6110 subtypes of this genetic group have IS6110 integrated at the identical chromosomal insertion site, located between dnaA and dnaN in the region containing the origin of replication. Remarkably, study of ≃6,000 isolates from patients in Houston and the New York City area discovered that 47 of 48 relatively large case clusters were caused by genotypic group 1 and 2 but not group 3 organisms. The observation that the newly emergent group 3 organisms are associated with sporadic rather than clustered cases suggests that the pathogen is evolving toward a state of reduced transmissability or virulence.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)9869-9874
Number of pages6
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume94
Issue number18
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2 1997

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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