Molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis in Kaohsiung City located at southern Taiwan, 2000-2008

Yih-Yuan Chen; Jia-Ru Chang; Shu-Chen Kuo; Fan-Chen Tseng; Wei-Chen Huang; Tsi-Shu Huang; Yao-Shen Chen; Tzong-Shi Chiueh; Jun-Ren Sun; Ih-Jen Su; Horng-Yunn Dou

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0117061

Molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis in Kaohsiung City located at southern Taiwan, 2000-2008

PLoS One. 2015 Jan 28;10(1):e0117061. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117061. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, National Health Research Institutes, Zhunan, Miaoli, Taiwan; Department of Internal Medicine, Ditmanson Medical Foundation Chiayi Christian Hospital, Chiaya City, Taiwan.
² National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, National Health Research Institutes, Zhunan, Miaoli, Taiwan.
³ National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, National Health Research Institutes, Zhunan, Miaoli, Taiwan; Graduate Institute of Basic Medical Science, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Microbiology, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
⁵ Division of Clinical Pathology, Department of Pathology, Tri-Service General Hospital and National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan.

Abstract

Background: We present the first comprehensive analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) isolates circulating in southern Taiwan. In this 9-year population-based study, the TB situation in the Kaohsiung region was characterized by genotypic analysis of 421 MTB isolates.

Methods: All 421 isolates of MTB were analyzed by spoligotyping and MIRU-VNTR typing. Drug-resistance patterns were also analyzed.

Results: The percentage of EAI (East African-Indian) strains increased across sampling years (2000-2008) in southern Taiwan, whereas the proportion of Beijing lineages remained unchanged. Clustering was more frequent with EAI genotype infections (odds ratio = 3.6, p<0.0001) when compared to Beijing genotypes. Notably, MTB resistance to streptomycin (STR) had significantly increased over time, but resistance to other antibiotics, including multidrug resistance, had not. Three major genes (gidB, rpsL and rrs) implicated in STR resistance were sequenced and specific mutations identified.

Conclusions: This study revealed that EAI strains were highly transmissible and that STR resistance has increased between 2000 and 2008 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Anti-Bacterial Agents / therapeutic use
Bacterial Typing Techniques
Drug Resistance, Bacterial / genetics
Genome, Bacterial
Humans
Molecular Epidemiology
Mycobacterium tuberculosis / genetics*
Mycobacterium tuberculosis / isolation & purification*
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
Retrospective Studies
Streptomycin / therapeutic use
Taiwan / epidemiology
Tuberculosis / drug therapy
Tuberculosis / epidemiology*
Tuberculosis / microbiology*

Substances

Anti-Bacterial Agents
Streptomycin

Grants and funding

This project was supported by grants from National Health Research Institutes and National Science Council (NSC 102-2320-B-400-006), Taiwan (HYD). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.