Isolation and characterization of an insertion element-like repetitive sequence specific for Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex - Research Article.

Sujatha Narayanan ; Sahadevan, R.; Narayanan, P.R.

Current Science; 1997; 73; 259-266.

We report the characterization of an insertion-like repetitive sequence containing the clone of Mycobacterium tuberculosis . This repetitive sequence contains seven inverted repeats. Restriction fragment length polymorphism studies using this probe have shown that it is not a highly polymorphic probe but rather shows conservative fingerprint pattern. Out of the 150 strains tested, only three showed different fingerprint patterns. It has several direct and inverted repeats. Homology studies of the putative protein coding region show that this repeat element might code for a metalloproteinase of M. tuberculosis . Homology studies also implicate this repeat element to be from a very essential region of M. tuberculosis genome participating in recombination. This repeat has been found to be an ideal target for polymerase chain reaction to detect M. tuberculosis .

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