Distribution of the Beijing Family Genotypes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Taiwan

Abstract

To investigate the distribution of the Beijing family genotypes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Taiwan, we collected 421 M. tuberculosis complex clinical isolates at random from four geographic regions of Taiwan and analyzed them by spacer oligonucleotide typing (spoligotyping) in 2003. We found 113 resolved spoligotypes, among which we identified 28 (24.8%) clusters. One hundred eighty-seven (44.4%) isolates were Beijing family genotypes and consisted of 172 (40.9%) characteristic Beijing genotypes and 15 (3.6%) Beijing-like ones. We also found that substantially larger proportions of tuberculosis patients were infected with Beijing family genotypes in the northern (51.6%) and eastern (46.2%) regions of Taiwan, while 31.6 and 28.0% of the tuberculosis patients in the central and southern regions, respectively, were infected with these genotypes. The proportion of Beijing genotype isolates was the highest in patients below the age of 24 years (61.5%), the second highest in elderly patients over age 65 years (46.8%), and the lowest in middle-age patients between the ages of 45 and 54 years (34.0%). Geographic location and age were found by multivariate analysis to be associated with Beijing family genotypes. Antituberculosis drug resistance was found more often in Beijing family genotype strains (46.4%) than in non-Beijing family genotype strains (34.3%), with more Beijing family genotype strains being resistant to ethambutol and isoniazid. These findings suggest that M. tuberculosis Beijing family genotypes have been dominant for several decades and that they are the cause of a significant proportion of the recent transmissions of tuberculosis in Taiwan.

Assessment of Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Unit-QUB Markers To Further Discriminate the Beijing Genotype in a Population-Based Study of the Genetic Diversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Clinical Isolates from Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, Japan

“…Excluding the Beijing genotype and three Beijing-like strains, the diversity observed was limited to seven clusters (18.8% of the strains): EAI2-Manilla, Haarlem3, LAM9-var, T1, T1-var, T2, and T3-Osaka. The high percentage of Beijing strains in Okinawa (71.3%) is in agreement with the overall value of 60% reported for East Asian countries (9) but remains one of the highest in this region (23,24,26), with percentages varying from 90% in Beijing and the Hebei province of China (11) to 70% in Korea (24), 68% in Hong Kong (16) and Thailand (25), 54% in Vietnam (1), 44% in Taiwan (14), 33% in peninsular Malaysia (6), and 11% in eastern Malaysia (6). On the other hand, the low proportion of LAM and Haarlem in this study shows the nonexposition of this insular population to any migratory flux from Latin American and European countries.…”

Genotypes and Characteristics of Clustering and Drug Susceptibility of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Isolates Collected in Heilongjiang Province, China

“…This genotype is thought to be associated with drug resistance (1,10,23,41). However, less association has been reported in other geographic settings (2,3,20,43). In the present study, the statistical analysis showed that there was no difference between the Beijing and non-Beijing genotype strains in drug resistance patterns, indicating that the Beijing genotype is less likely to be associated with the high prevalence of drug resistance and M. tuberculosis TB in our area.…”

Role of 2-month sputum smears in predicting culture conversion in pulmonary tuberculosis

“…According to the present data, the impact of the Beijing strain in 2-month sputum culture conversion is probably limited in Taiwan. However, previous studies have documented that the Beijing strain, in Taiwan, is not associated with a significantly higher resistance rate to rifampicin, which may lead to its nonsignificant role in culture conversion [21,23]. In areas where the Beijing strain has been reported to have a higher drug-resistance rate, especially to rifampicin, the role of genotyping in culture conversion remains to be identified and further studies are needed to clarify the issue.…”