Comparative analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing strains isolated in three remote areas of Japan.

A quantitative and qualitative comparison was carried out of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing strains isolated in three remote areas of Japan. A total of 452 strains from Chiba Prefecture, 75 from Yamagata Prefecture, and 315 from Kobe City were analyzed for 24 loci by variable number of tandem repeats typing (24(Beijing)-VNTR). All strains were classified in six Beijing subgroups (B(SUB)), B1 to B5 and T, based on a minimum spanning tree reconstructed using data of a standard set of 15 VNTR loci.

[Analytical procedure of variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) analysis and effective use of analysis results for tuberculosis control].

Variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) analysis is one of the methods for molecular epidemiological studies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. VNTR analysis is a method based on PCR, provides rapid highly reproducible results and higher strain discrimination power than the restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis widely used in molecular epidemiological studies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Genetic lineage compositions of Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates differ among the regions from where they are isolated, and allelic diversity at each locus also differs among the genetic lineages of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Population genetic analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing subgroup strains.

Population genetic analysis using variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) data of 23 loci (15 "optimized MIRU" loci and eight "Beijing option" loci) was done on Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing lineage strains isolated in Japan. These strains were divided into Beijing subgroups (B(SUB)) B1-B5 and T2 by minimum spanning tree (MST) analysis. The Φ(PT) values among the B(SUB), a measure of their molecular variance, were significantly different from zero with 999 permutations, indicating the validity of B(SUB) classification using the 23 VNTR loci.

Concordance of variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) and large sequence polymorphism (LSP) analyses of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains.

Variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) and large sequence polymorphism (LSP) analyses were compared to determine whether VNTR analysis was effective for population genetic analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains. A total of 682 strains, 510 Beijing genotype and 172 non-Beijing genotype strains, were studied. The number of repeats was investigated for 24 VNTR loci: the 15 loci of "optimized miru", the 8 loci of "Beijing option", and 1 locus for "JATA12".

Chromosome arm location of the genes for the biosynthesis of hordatines in barley.

Hordatines A and B, the strong antifungal compounds in barley (Hordeum vulgare), are biosynthesized from p-coumaroyl- and feruloyl-CoA and agmatine by two successive reactions catalyzed by agmatine coumaroyltransferase (ACT) and peroxidase. ACT catalyzes the formation of agmatine conjugates (p-coumaroylagmatine and feruloylagmatine) from precursor CoAs and agmatine, and peroxidase catalyzes the oxidative coupling of agmatine conjugates to form hordatines. Our previous study demonstrated that the short arm of barley chromosome 2H (2HS) is responsible for the biosynthesis of hordatines.

[Cluster analysis of restriction fragment length polymorphism patterns of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolated in Chiba prefecture].

Methods for cluster analysis of IS6110 based restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates were studied for an epidemiological investigation in Chiba prefecture. To normalize patterns, external size markers were adopted instead of typical internal size markers used in the standard method. RFLP patterns were run on 1.

Comparison between agarose gel electrophoresis and capillary electrophoresis for variable numbers of tandem repeat typing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Variable numbers of tandem repeat (VNTR) typing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was performed on 54 strains including 23 strains derived from 9 outbreaks. PCR amplicon sizes of 12 mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit tandem repeat loci were measured using both agarose gel electrophoresis and capillary electrophoresis. Similarities using agarose gel electrophoresis of Euclidian distances among the 23 strains derived from the 9 outbreaks were significantly lower than that using capillary electrophoresis (Wilcoxon signed ranks test, P < 0.