Conference in 33rd Annual Congress of the European Society of Mycobacteriology

July 4^th, 2012

Rodriguez-Campos S., Romero B., de Juan L., Bezos J., Alvarez J., Casal C., Fernandez de Mera IG., Moya N., Mateos A., Smith NH., Aranaz A. and Dominguez L.

Mycobacterium bovis is the main causative agent of bovine tuberculosis, but is able to infect a variety of host species including livestock and wildlife. In Spain, M. bovis causes approximately 90% of the cases of animal tuberculosis registered in the national database mycoDB.es (www.mycoDB.es). Spoligotyping is the most widely used molecular typing technique for M. bovis based on the presence/absence of spacer sequences in the Direct Repeat locus. The Spanish M. bovis population shows high diversity with 412 different spoligotyping patterns identified to date and almost 70% of the total of 17862 M. bovis isolates show spoligotyping patterns that lack spacer 21. The molecular typing techniques are typically employed for tracing purposes, but can moreover be useful for phylogenetical studies. In this way, spoligotype signatures (absence/presence of determined spacers) may hint at certain M. tuberculosis complex species or lineages. Recently, four clonal complexes of M. bovis have been described, the African1 (Af1), African2 (Af2), European1 (Eu1) and European2 (Eu2) clonal complex. These clonal complexes are defined by specific spoligotype signatures [absence of spacer 30 (Af1), absence of spacers 3 to 7(Af2), absence of spacer 11 (Eu1), absence of spacer 21 (Eu2)] and unique large sequence polymorphisms (deletion of Region of Difference RDAf1, RDAf2, RDEu1, respectively) or single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP in guaA). The African clonal complexes are geographically localised in West (Af1) and East (Af2) Africa, while the Eu1 clonal complex is dominating in the British Isles but is globally distributed. The Eu2 clonal complex is dominant in Spain and Portugal and present at lower frequencies in France and Italy. The Spanish M. bovis population shows low frequencies of isolates with spoligotype signatures hinting at the Af1, Af2 or Eu1 clonal complex (4%, 1% and 10%, respectively) and deletion typing suggested that the African clonal complexes are absent from Spain and that Eu1 members account for approximately 6% of the isolates. The Eu2 clonal complex prevails in Spain (67%), still, almost a third of the M. bovis population is probably influenced by members of other clonal complexes from the European continent that remain to be defined

	Servicio de Micobacterias (MYC). Centro de Vigilancia Sanitaria Veterinaria (VISAVET). Universidad Complutense (UCM).
	Departamento de Sanidad Animal. Facultad de Veterinaria. Universidad Complutense (UCM).