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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

DNA Fingerprinting of Mycobacterium leprae Strains Using Variable Number Tandem Repeat (VNTR) - Fragment Length Analysis (FLA)
Published on: July 15, 2011
Evolution of short sequence repeats in Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Cath Arnold1, Nicola Thorne, Anthony Underwood
1Centre for Infections, Health Protection Agency, London, UK. catherine.arnold@hpa.org.uk
Abstract:
Whole genome comparison has revealed the presence of short sequence repeats (also called mycobacterial interspersed repeat units and variable number tandem repeat units) used for genotyping schemes. In this study, we have used deletion analysis, single nucleotide polymorphism data and spoligotype taken from published data from others to investigate the evolution of selected repeats that form the common denominators of the majority of established schemes. Analysis of the number of repeats per locus from over 400 isolates revealed that the general trend globally appears to be loss of repeats in modern strains compared with ancestral strains.
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