RESEARCH ARTICLE Characterization of the Genetic Diversity of Extensively-Drug Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis Clinical Isolates from Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients in Peru

Background: Peru holds the fourth highest burden of tuberculosis in the Americas. Despite an apparently well-functioning DOTS control program, the prevalence of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) continues to increase. To worsen this situation, cases of extensively drug resistance tuberculosis (XDR-TB) have been detected. Little information exists about the genetic diversity of drug-susceptible vs. MDR-TB and XDR-TB. Methods: Cryopreserved samples of XDR strains from 2007 to 2009 (second semester), were identified and collected. Starting from 227 frozen samples, a total of 142 XDR-TB strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC; 1 isolate per patient) were retained for this study. Each strain DNA was analyzed by spoligotyping and the 15-loci Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Unit (MIRU-15). Results: Among the 142 isolates analyzed, only 2 samples (1.41%) could not be matched to any lineage. The most prevalent sublineage was Haarlem (43.66%)