Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing in the State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico

Tuberculosis remains a serious threat to human health as an infectious disease in Mexico. Data about the genotypes of circulating Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates (MTB) in the State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico are scarce. We aimed to determine the genotypes of circulating MTB belonging to the Beijing lineage recovered from patients in the State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico. A total of 406 MTB isolates from this state were genotyped using the spoligotyping method and 18-locus MIRU-VNTR. Lineage classification and MTB transmission analysis were performed. Based on the spoligotyping analysis, we found 24 strains belonging to the Beijing genotype that were characterized phylogenetically. The MIRUs showed greater discriminatory power than the standard RFLP-IS6110 method; therefore, the greatest allelic diversity among the Beijing strains was observed with MIRU10, MIRU31, MIRU39, MRU40, and MIRU 26. MVLA analysis showed a profile variation between Beijing and non-Beijing strains. The minimum spanning tree (MST) showed that 79% (19) of the strains are related. All Beijing strains exhibited the deletion of region TbD1, which is a characteristic of modern strains. The application of spoligotyping and MIRU-VNTR-18 methods together proved to be more sensitive, discriminatory, and rapid than the standard method for the epidemiological analysis of Mycobacterium Beijing isolates. This study is one of the first to describe the genomic diversity of M. Beijing in the State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico.