a new evolutionary scenario for the mycobacterium.pdfVIP

A new evolutionary scenario for the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex † ‡ § R. Brosch*, S. V. Gordon , M. Marmiesse*, P. Brodin*, C. Buchrieser , K. Eiglmeier*, T. Garnier*, C. Gutierrez , G. Hewinson† ¶ ¶ †† , K. Kremer , L. M. Parsons , A. S. Pym*, S. Samper**, D. van Soolingen , and S. T. Cole* *Unite´ de Ge´ne´tique Mole´culaire Bacte´rienne, ‡Laboratoire de Ge´nomique des Microorganismes Pathoge`nes, and §Centre National de Re´fe´rence des Mycobacte´ries, Institut Pasteur, 25-28 Rue du Docteur Roux, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France; †Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Woodham Lane, New Haw, Addlestone, Surrey KT15 3NB, United Kingdom; ¶ Mycobacteria Reference Department, Diagnostic Laboratory for Infectious Diseases and Perinatal Screening, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, 3720 BA Bilthoven, The Netherlands; Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health and School of Public Health, State University of New York at Albany, David Axelrod Institute, Albany, NY 12201-2002; and **Departamento de Microbiologia, Medicina Preventiva y Salud Publica, Universidad de Zaragoza, CDomingo Miralsn, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Edited by John Maynard Smith, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom, and approved January 9, 2002 (received for review October 15, 2001) The distribution of 20 variable regions resulting from insertion- roughly 15,000–20,000 years ago (2). Also, it has been speculated deletion events in the genomes of the tubercle bacilli has been that M. tuberculosis , the most widespread etiological agent of evaluated in a total of 100 strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, human tubercu