Thorough analysis of a rapid spread tuberculosis outbreak by epidemiological and whole-genome sequencing.

Thorough analysis of a rapid spread tuberculosis outbreak by epidemiological and whole-genome sequencing. Infect Genet Evol. 2020 Jan 10;:104184 Authors: Comin J, Chaure A, Cebollada A, Ibarz D, Viñuelas J, Vitoria MA, Iglesias MJ, Samper S Abstract The genotyping is applied to analyse tuberculosis detected in Aragon, Spain, since 2004. The new sequencing technologies were applied to analyse an outbreak which, the first time the responsible Myocbacterium tuberculosis strain of the outbreak appeared was in 2014, spreading to 14 patients in the next three years. We perform whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to characterise the strain and try to elucidate the transmission chain. The WGS results showed that this strain belonged to the Linage 4.3.3 and was genetically susceptible to anti-tuberculosis drugs. We found scarce variability between the isolates indicating a recent transmission. In addition, none of the SNPs detected were found more than once. The complete assembly of the transmission chain was not possible. Two ambiguous bases linked two cases with those who presented the SNP in the same position. The epidemiological data reported the existence of a super-disseminator, probably responsible for the majority of the cases involved due to a two-year delay diagnosis. This fact would explain the low variability found. The index case could not be identified, feasibly because it was not diagnosed in Aragon. This work shows the necessity of...
Source: Infection, Genetics and Evolution - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Tags: Infect Genet Evol Source Type: research