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Genomic Epidemiology of a Major Mycobacterium tuberculosis Outbreak: Retrospective Cohort Study in a Low-Incidence
Dorte Bek Folkvardsen1, Anders Norman1,2, Åse Bengård Andersen3,4
1International Reference Laboratory of Mycobacteriology, Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen.
Abstract:
Since 1992, Denmark has documented the largest outbreak of tuberculosis in Scandinavia ascribed to a single genotype, termed C2/1112-15. As of spring 2017, the International Reference Laboratory of Mycobacteriology in Copenhagen has collected and identified isolates from more than a thousand cases belonging to this outbreak via routine mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units-variable number of tandem repeats typing. Here, we present a retrospective analysis of the C2/1112-15 dataset, based on whole-genome data from a sparse time series consisting of 5 randomly selected isolates from 23 years of sampling. Even if these data are derived from only 12% of the collected isolates, we have been able to extract important key information, such as mutation rate and conserved single-nucleotide polymorphisms to identify discrete transmission chains, as well as the possible historical origins of the outbreak.
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