Amplified-fragment length polymorphism as a complement to IS6110-based restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis for molecular typing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

The amplified-fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) technique was applied to clusters of Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates obtained by using IS6110-based restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). Ten of the RFLP clusters showed identical AFLP patterns also, but the other 13 could be resolved into subclusters by AFLP. Our results suggest that some RFLP clusters may not be due to recent transmission and that AFLP may be a useful complementary technique.