A well-characterized collection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) isolates, representing all known subspecies as well as some relevant genotypic families of M. tuberculosis, was analyzed for the newly discovered narGHJI ؊215 C-to-T promoter single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP). This point mutation has been shown in earlier studies to be responsible for the differential nitrate reductase activity of M. tuberculosis versus M. bovis. As previously defined by the presence or the absence of the TbD1 genetic locus, the group included both the "modern" W-Beijing, Haarlem, and Central-Asian1 (CAS1) families as well as the "ancestral" East-African-Indian (EAI) clade. Interestingly, among "modern" M. tuberculosis isolates, those previously classified as Principal Genetic Group 1 (PGG1) organisms by katG 463 -gyrA 95 polymorphism analysis did not present the two-banded narGHJI restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of PCR products pattern common to the other PGG1 MTC members, including the "ancestral" M. tuberculosis isolates. Instead, they showed a one-banded pattern, aligning them with other evolutionarily recent M. tuberculosis isolates of the PGG2 and PGG3 groups, such as Haarlem, Latin-American and Mediterranean (LAM), and X families. The presence of a nitrate reductase producer phenotype in "Mycobacterium canettii" and some "ancestral" M. tuberculosis isolates, despite a two-band ؊215C genotype, argues in favor of an alternate mechanism to explain the differential nitrate reductase activity of certain PGG1 subspecies of the MTC. Overall, these findings may help to establish the precise evolutionary history of important genotype families such as W-Beijing and suggest that the ؊215T genotype may have contributed the virulence, spread, and evolutionary success of "modern" M. tuberculosis strains compared to the remaining MTC organisms.Together with niacin production, catalase/peroxidase activity, and urease production, the assay of nitrate reductase activity, through the accumulation of nitrite, remains a basic phenotypic criterion for differentiating Mycobacterium tuberculosis from Mycobacterium bovis in diagnostic mycobacteriology (6). Contrary to M. tuberculosis, which presents a strong nitrate reductase activity under aerobic conditions, M. bovis and the M. bovis-derived BCG vaccine strain fail to rapidly accumulate nitrite from nitrate. However, both M. tuberculosis and M. bovis possess the narGHJI operon, which is expressed under anaerobic conditions in both subspecies and the product of which is a membrane-bound anaerobic nitrate reductase complex (25). As an alternative to using oxygen as a terminal electron acceptor, the NarGHJI complex couples this process to the reduction of nitrate. It was shown previously that this enzyme is induced under anaerobic conditions in Bacillus subtilis (18), and the switch to anaerobic metabolism is believed to be critical in the establishment of latent infection by M. tuberculosis and possibly the other tubercle bacilli. Recently, a C-to-T transition at posi...