Description of clusters composed of predominant shared types (defined as SITs representing >2% strains, n = 16) in our study and their worldwide distribution in the SITVIT2 database.

*<p>Worldwide distribution is reported for regions with more than 3% of a given SITs as compared to their total number in the SITVIT2 database. The definition of macro-geographical regions and sub-regions (<a href="http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm" target="_blank">http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm</a>) is according to the United Nations; Regions: AFRI (Africa), AMER (Americas), ASIA (Asia), EURO (Europe), and OCE (Oceania), subdivided in: E (Eastern), M (Middle), C (Central), N (Northern), S (Southern), SE (South-Eastern), and W (Western). Furthermore, CARIB (Caribbean) belongs to Americas, while Oceania is subdivided in 4 sub-regions, AUST (Australasia), MEL (Melanesia), MIC (Micronesia), and POLY (Polynesia). Note that in our classification scheme, Russia has been attributed a new sub-region by itself (Northern Asia) instead of including it among rest of the Eastern Europe. It reflects its geographical localization as well as due to the similarity of specific TB genotypes circulating in Russia (a majority of Beijing genotypes) with those prevalent in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia.</p>**<p>The 3 letter country codes are according to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-3" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-3</a>; countrywide distribution is only shown for SITs with ≥3% of a given SITs as compared to their total number in the SITVIT2 database.