Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis strains isolated from Crohn's disease patients and animal species exhibit similar polymorphic locus patterns

Abstract

Analysis of short sequence repeats of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis isolated from Crohn's disease patients identified two alleles, both of which clustered with strains derived from animals with Johne's disease. Identification of a limited number of genotypes among human strains implies the existence of human disease-associated genotypes and strain sharing with animals.

FIG. 1.

Dendrogram showing the distribution of strains by the number of G and GGT repeats. Shown are the number of G repeats followed by the number of GGT repeats and the host species. Host species not followed by a number indicate one isolate. The geographic locations (U.S. postal abbreviations) are in parentheses. A superscript following a geographic location indicates the number of isolates from that location. Also shown at the clade origins are the pairwise distances generated by the neighbor-joining model. unkn, unknown.

FIG. 2.

Allele distribution across various host species strongly suggests strain sharing and interspecies transmission among M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis strains.