J. D. A. Van Embden

TL;DR: A novel method based on strain-dependent hybridization patterns of in vitro-amplified DNA with multiple spacer oligonucleotides was found to differentiate M. bovis from M. tuberculosis, a distinction which is often difficult to make by traditional methods.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a standardized technique which exploits variability in both the number and genomic position of IS6110 to generate strain-specific patterns for DNA fingerprinting of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

TL;DR: The results indicate that M. tuberculosis strains from regions in central Africa, where tuberculosis is highly prevalent, are generally more related to each other than isolates from the Netherlands, where the transmission rate is low and where the majority of the tuberculosis cases are presumed to be the result of reactivation of previously contracted M.culosis infections.

TL;DR: Analysis of the population structure of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains from the People's Republic of China showed that the vast majority belong to a genetically closely related group, which is designated the "Beijing family" of M. tuberculosis strains, indicating that strains of the Beijing family recently expanded from a single ancestor which had a selective advantage.

TL;DR: Strain differentiation by IS6110 RFLP or mixed-linker PCR are the methods of choice for epidemiological investigations, indicating a clonal population structure of M. tuberculosis strains.