Genome analysis shows a common evolutionary origin for the dominant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in a UK South Asian community.

We have investigated the Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain types present in the South Asian population of the UK, in which tuberculosis is particularly prevalent. In contrast to the widespread Beijing strains which have the variable number tandem repeats (VNTR) profile 42435, isolates with the VNTR profile 42235, jointly with 02335 or 42234 profiles, appear more frequently in tuberculosis patients of South Asian ethnic origin (SA-strains) in the UK than in any other ethnic group. Using microarray-based comparative genomics to distinguish total or partially deleted genes, we found that three of the common deleted regions in the SA-strains were identical to some deleted genes in the strain CH, which caused an outbreak among South Asian patients in Leicester in 2001 but were different from genomic deletions found in Beijing/W strains.

The prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis in fresh tissue specimens from patients with ectopic pregnancy or tubal factor infertility as determined by PCR and in-situ hybridisation.

The prevalence of chlamydial DNA determined by PCR and in-situ hybridisation (ISH) in fresh tissue specimens (endometrium, fallopian tube and ovary) was investigated in 33 women presenting with ectopic pregnancy (EP), 14 women with tubal factor infertility (TFI) and 50 control patients from the UK and the West Indies. In the UK EP group, chlamydial DNA was detected by PCR in 56% of patients; similar results were found in the Trinidad EP group (67%). In the TFI group, chlamydial DNA was detected in (71%) of patients by PCR.