A robust SNP barcode for typing Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex strains

Strain-specific genomic diversity in the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) is an important factor in pathogenesis that may affect virulence, transmissibility, host response and emergence of drug resistance. Several systems have been proposed to classify MTBC strains into distinct lineages and families. Here, we investigate single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as robust (stable) markers of genetic variation for phylogenetic analysis. We identify ~92 k SNP across a global collection of 1,601 genomes. The SNP-based phylogeny is consistent with the gold-standard regions of difference (RD) classification system. Of the ~7 k strain-specific SNPs identified, 62 markers are proposed to discriminate known…

• WT
  Wellcome Trust
• KA
  King Abdullah University of Science and Technology