Genotypic diversity of resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains isolated from tuberculosis patients in East Azerbaijan center by MIRU-VNTR

Tuberculosis has become one of the most serious diseases due to theincreased prevalence of resistance. To control the disease, tuberculosis molecular epidemiological studies are important in determining the genetic diversity of strains circulating in communities. The aim of this study was to investigate the molecular epidemiology of drug-resistant tuberculosis among patients in Iran and Azerbaijan.   The isolates from tuberculosis patients of the Azerbaijan Republic andTabriz were studied from March 2014 to March 2015. All isolates were identified as Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex by biochemical methods and drug susceptibility testing against isoniazid, rifampicin, streptomycin, and ethambutol was performed by proportional method. Following DNA extraction, each MIRU locus was amplified individually to determine their repeat numbers as compared to H37Rv standard strain. Finally, genotyping was performed according to the repeat numbers of subsets of 15 studied loci using the MIRU-VNTRplus reference website.   Totally of 119 obtained isolates, resistance to at least one drug of the first line of anti-TB drugs and multidrug resistance were observed as 27.73 and 6.72 percent, respectively. Cameron, UgandaӀ, UgandaӀӀ, LAM, TUR, Dehli/CAS, Bovis, Beijing, NEW-1 and H37Rv were among genotypic families which were determined.   According to the results of this study, the rate and pattern of drug resistance andgenotypic families are different among the people of Tabriz and Azerbaijan, but the indicators were more diverse in Azerbaijan as compared to Tabriz.