Abstract
DNA finger printing of bacteria by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis based on insertion sequence (IS) 6110 is used for effective interventions in the control of tuberculosis.
RFLP analysis is used for judging the differences between bacterial strains detected from patient materials in outbreak cases. It is also used to confirm cross-contamination in Mycobacteriology laboratory and to distinguish endogenous reactivation from exogenous reinfection of tuberculosis. If patients are infected with bacteria having identical DNA fingerprints, they are considered to belong to a specific cluster. The proportion of clustering is assumed to reflect the recent tuberculosis transmission that has occurred within the community. High proportions (about 50%) were reported from the countries where the incidence of tuberculosis is high and low proportions (about 20%) were reported from the countries where the incidence of tuberculosis is low.
In Japan, a difference in the proportion by area was reported (7.7%-32%) . It was also reported that a high proportion of patients belonged to the groups respectively having the similar patterns. These findings might reflect the epidemiological characteristics of Japan; there are many elder patients having been mostly infected in the past period when the incidence of tuberculosis was very high.
