articleTop 10% cited

Variable human minisatellite‐like regions in the <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> genome

Molecular Microbiology · 2000 · Vol. 36(3) · pp. 762–771

Philip Supply✉(Inserm)Edith MazarsSarah Lesjean(Inserm)Véronique Vincent(Laboratoire National de Référence)Brigitte GicquelCamille Locht(Inserm)

View via DOI Publisher page

Abstract

Mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units (MIRUs) are 40-100 bp DNA elements often found as tandem repeats and dispersed in intergenic regions of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex genomes. The M. tuberculosis H37Rv chromosome contains 41 MIRU loci. After polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequence analyses of these loci in 31 M. tuberculosis complex strains, 12 of them were found to display variations in tandem repeat copy numbers and, in most cases, sequence variations between repeat units as well. These features are reminiscent of those of certain human variable minisatellites. Of the 12 variable loci, only one was found to vary among genealogically distant BCG substrains, suggesting that these interspersed bacterial minisatellite-like structures evolve slowly in mycobacterial populations.

Tuberculosis Research and Epidemiology Mycobacterium research and diagnosis RNA and protein synthesis mechanismsMinisatelliteBiologyGeneticsTandem repeatVariable number tandem repeatMycobacterium tuberculosisGenomeIntergenic regionRepeated sequencePolymerase chain reaction

MeSH terms

Base SequenceChromosome MappingChromosomes, BacterialHumansMolecular Sequence DataMycobacterium tuberculosisGenetic VariationConsensus SequenceGenome, BacterialMinisatellite Repeats