Evidence that the spread of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains with the Beijing genotype is human population dependent

This study describes a comparative analysis of the Beijing mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit types of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Cape Town, South Africa, and East Asia. The results show a significant association between the frequency of occurrence of strains from defined Beijing sublineages and the human population from whom they were cultured (P < 0.0001). Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.