Whole genome sequencing versus traditional genotyping for investigation of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis outbreak: A longitudinal molecular epidemiological study
Roetzer, Diel. et al. PLOS Medicine

Whole-genome sequencing provides refined resolution for tuberculosis tracking compared with conventional methods based on strain typing, according to this PLOS Medicine study. Researchers from Germany and France did whole-genome sequencing on 86 Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from a German TB outbreak, which occurred in the midst of a prospective epidemiological survey spanning more than a decade. With the genome sequence data, they tracked down 85 SNPs that proved useful for finding clusters of isolates and following the course of the outbreak, which started with the emergence a so-called Hamburg clone in the early- to mid-1990s, followed by its expansion in 1998, and subsequently spread to a nearby state called Schleswig-Holstein. "Based on the genome variation discovered, emergence of the Hamburg clone was dated back to a period between 1993 and 1997," authors of the study conclude, "shortly before the discovery of the outbreak through epidemiological surveillance."