The tempo and mode of molecular evolution of Mycobacterium tuberculosis at patient-to-patient scale

A total of six polymorphisms were identified by comparing the genomes of the first and the last isolate of a well-characterized transmission chain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis involving five patients over a 12 and a half year period. The six polymorphisms consisted of four single nucleotide changes (SNPs), a tandem repeat polymorphism (TRP) and a previously identified IS6110 transposition event. These polymorphic sites were surveyed in each of the isolates from the five patients in the transmission chain. Surprisingly, five of the six polymorphisms accumulated in a single patient in the transmission chain; this patient had been non-compliant to tuberculosis treatment. This first insight into the tempo and mode of molecular evolution in M. tuberculosis at the patient-to-patient level suggests that the molecular evolution of the pathogen in vivo is characterized by periods of relative genomic stability followed by bursts of mutation. Whatever the mechanism for the accumulation of mutations, this observation may have profound consequences for the application of vaccines and therapeutic drugs, the management and treatment of disease outbreaks of M. tuberculosis, the most important bacterial pathogen of humans.