Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Molecular Immunology, Basel, Switzerland.
PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2010 Jul 20;4(7):e751. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0000751.
Buruli ulcer (BU) is an emerging necrotizing disease of the skin and subcutaneous tissue caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans. While proximity to stagnant or slow flowing water bodies is a risk factor for acquiring BU, the epidemiology and mode of M. ulcerans transmission is poorly understood. Here we have used high-throughput DNA sequencing and comparisons of the genomes of seven M. ulcerans isolates that appeared monomorphic by existing typing methods. We identified a limited number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and developed a real-time PCR SNP typing method based on these differences. We then investigated clinical isolates of M. ulcerans on which we had detailed information concerning patient location and time of diagnosis. Within the Densu river basin of Ghana we observed dominance of one clonal complex and local clustering of some of the variants belonging to this complex. These results reveal focal transmission and demonstrate, that micro-epidemiological analyses by SNP typing has great potential to help us understand how M. ulcerans is transmitted.
布鲁里溃疡（BU）是一种由溃疡分枝杆菌引起的新兴皮肤和皮下组织坏死性疾病。虽然靠近静止或缓慢流动的水体是感染 BU 的危险因素，但 BU 的流行病学和溃疡分枝杆菌传播方式尚不清楚。在这里，我们使用高通量 DNA 测序和对七种溃疡分枝杆菌分离株基因组的比较，这些分离株通过现有分型方法显示出单态性。我们鉴定了少数单核苷酸多态性（SNP），并基于这些差异开发了一种实时 PCR SNP 分型方法。然后，我们研究了我们有详细的患者位置和诊断时间信息的 M. ulcerans 临床分离株。在加纳的登苏河流域，我们观察到一个克隆复合体的主导地位，以及属于该复合体的一些变体的局部聚集。这些结果揭示了局部传播，并表明 SNP 分型的微观流行病学分析具有很大的潜力，可以帮助我们了解 M. ulcerans 是如何传播的。
