Bacterial Genotyping of Central Nervous System Tuberculosis in South Africa: Heterogenic Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection and Predominance of Lineage 4 [Mycobacteriology and Aerobic Actinomycetes]

In this study, we set out to determine whether a certain M. tuberculosis lineage demonstrated tropism to cause TBM in patients from Cape Town, South Africa. DNA was extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded central nervous system (CNS) tissue from a unique neuropathological cohort of 83 TBM patients, collected between 1975 and 2012. M. tuberculosis lineages 1, 2, 3, and 4 were determined using an allele-specific PCR and Sanger sequencing. Of the 83 patient specimens tested, bacterial characterization could be performed on 46 specimens (55%). M. tuberculosis lineage 4 was present in 26 patient specimens (56%), and non-lineage 4 was identified in 10 cases (22%). Moreover, genomic heterogeneity was detected in the CNS specimens of 7 adults and 3 children. We could show that infection of the CNS is not restricted to a single M. tuberculosis lineage and that even young children with rapid progression of disease can harbor more than one M. tuberculosis lineage in the CNS.

Source: Journal of Clinical Microbiology - July 25, 2019 Category: Microbiology Authors: van Leeuwen, L. M., Versteegen, P., Zaharie, S. D., van Elsland, S. L., Jordaan, A., Streicher, E. M., Warren, R. M., van der Kuip, M., van Furth, A. M. Tags: Mycobacteriology and Aerobic Actinomycetes Source Type: research