Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectocontagious respiratory disease caused by members of the
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
complex. A 7 base pair (bp) deletion in the
locus polyketide synthase (pks)15/1 is described as polymorphic among members of the
M. tuberculosis complex, enabling the identification of Euro-American, Indo-Oceanic and Asian lineages. The aim of this study was to characterise this
locus in TB isolates from Mexico. One hundred twenty clinical isolates were recovered from the states of Veracruz and Estado de Mexico. We determined the nucleotide sequence of a ± 400 bp fragment of the
locus pks15/1, while genotypic characterisation was performed by spoligotyping. One hundred and fifty isolates contained the 7 bp deletion, while five had the wild type
locus. Lineages X (22%), LAM (18%) and T (17%) were the most frequent; only three (2%) of the isolates were identified as Beijing and two (1%) EAI-Manila. The wild type
pks15/1 locus was observed in all Asian lineage isolates tested. Our results confirm the utility of
locus pks15/1 as a molecular marker for identifying Asian lineages of the
M. tuberculosis complex. This marker could be of great value in the epidemiological surveillance of TB, especially in countries like Mexico, where the prevalence of such lineages is unknown.
