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Journal of Bacteriology, February 2006, p. 1462-1465, Vol. 188, No. 4
0021-9193/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.188.4.1462-1465.2006
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Genetic Diversity in Mycobacterium ulcerans Isolates from Ghana Revealed by a Newly Identified Locus Containing a Variable Number of Tandem Repeats

Markus Hilty,^1,* Dorothy Yeboah-Manu,^1,2, Daniel Boakye,² Ernestina Mensah-Quainoo,³ Simona Rondini,¹ Esther Schelling,¹ David Ofori-Adjei,² Françoise Portaels,⁴ Jakob Zinsstag,¹ and Gerd Pluschke¹

Swiss Tropical Institute, 4002 Basel, Switzerland,¹ Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Legon, Ghana,² Tema Municipal Health Directorate, Tema, Ghana,³ Institute of Tropical Medicine, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium⁴

Received 17 August 2005/ Accepted 18 November 2005

The molecular typing methods used so far for Mycobacterium ulcerans isolates have not been able to identify genetic differences among isolates from Africa. This apparent lack of genetic diversity among M. ulcerans isolates is indicative of a clonal population structure. We analyzed the genetic diversity of 72 African isolates, including 57 strains from Ghana, by variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) typing based on a newly identified polymorphic locus designated ST1 and the previously described locus MIRU 1. Three different genotypes were found in Ghana, demonstrating for the first time the genetic diversity of M. ulcerans in an African country. While the ST1/MIRU 1 allele combination BD/BAA seems to dominate in Africa, it was only rarely found in isolates from Ghana, where the combination BD/B was dominant and observed in all districts studied. A third variant genotype (C/BAA) was found only in the Amansie-West district. The results indicate that new genetic variants of M. ulcerans emerged and spread within Ghana and support the potential of VNTR-based typing for genotyping of M. ulcerans.

Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

M.H. and D.Y.-M. contributed equally to this work.

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