Comparative Evaluation of Band-Based Genotyping Methods forMycobacterium intracellulareand Its Application for Epidemiological Analysis

Abstract

Mycobacterium intracellulareis a leading cause of nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease, with a rapidly increasing prevalence worldwide. This bacterium, commonly distributed in soil and water, is known to be transmitted through the environment rather than between people. Therefore, it is imperative to establish distinguishable genotyping methods to understand the clinical outcome, disease relapses, and epidemiology. Therefore, in this study, representative band-based genotyping methods were performed usingM. intracellualreclinical isolates, and their Hunter-Gaston discriminatory index (HGDI) was 0.947, 0.994, and 1 for variable number tandem repetition (VNTR), VNTR-mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units, pulsed field gel electrophoresis, and repetitive sequence based-PCR, respectively. Although VNTR showed relatively low HGDI, co-infection with otherM. intracellualrestrains could be determined by loci showing allele diversity from 0 to 0.69. Additionally, genetic distance of clinical isolates from Gyeongnam/Korea, and other regions/countries were visualized by minimum spanning tree (MST) using the globally available VNTR profiles. The results of MST revealed thatM. intracellulareisolated from patients in Gyeongnam/Korea had specific VNTR genotypes, which may be evidence of the geographic distribution ofM. intracellularespecific genotypes. The comparative results of genotyping techniques and geographical characteristics in this study may provide fundamental information for the epidemiology ofM. intracellulare.