Spoligotype database of Mycobacterium tuberculosis: biogeographic distribution of shared types and epidemiologic and phylogenetic perspectives.

We give an update on the worldwide spoligotype database, which now contains 3,319 spoligotype patterns of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 47 countries, with 259 shared types, i.e., identical spoligotypes shared by two or more patient isolates. The 259 shared types contained a total of 2,779 (84%) of all the isolates. Seven major genetic groups represented 37% of all clustered isolates. Two types (119 and 137) were found almost exclusively in the USA and accounted for 9% of clustered isolates. The remaining 1,517 isolates were scattered into 252 different spoligotypes. This database constitutes a tool for pattern comparison of M. tuberculosis clinical isolates for global epidemiologic studies and phylogenetic purposes.