A database for animal tuberculosis (mycoDB.es) within the context of the Spanish national programme for eradication of bovine tuberculosis

Abstract

Spoligotyping and mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit-variable number tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR) analysis are the international standard techniques for molecular typing of members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. To enable the exploitation of molecular typing data for epidemiological purposes, the creation of large databases is indispensable. Here we describe mycoDB.es, a database for animal tuberculosis which forms part of the Spanish national programme for eradication of bovine tuberculosis. This database has been created as an epidemiological tool at national level and contains spoligotype patterns of 17,273 isolates clustered in 401 different spoligotypes of Mycobacterium bovis, Mycobacterium caprae and M. tuberculosis. The database offers an overview of the present spoligotypes, to a lower extent also of MIRU-VNTR types, affected animal species and furthermore of the spatial distribution of these genotypes.