A study of the distribution of Mycobacterium leprae strains among cases in a rural and urban population of Maharashtra, India.

The elimination of leprosy continues to be a challenge with several countries remaining endemic for the disease. India accounts for the highest number of cases and the identification of child cases indicates recent transmission. Genetic markers like VNTRs and SNPs have been identified to track transmission of the pathogen Mycobacterium leprae. These were used to describe M. leprae strains detected in 48 skin biopsies of leprosy patients in the state of Maharashtra in western India in a rural and urban area near Mumbai. Ninety three percent of strains across both settings belonged to the SNP type 1D; with three of SNP type 1B being identified in patients living within 3km of each other. The VNTR profiles of the Maharashtra strains clustered with those from Southern India reported previously, and to a few other Asian strains, indicating that the Indian strains are genotypically conserved at the level of many VNTR loci. Taken together, SNP and VNTR markers are sufficiently reliable and suitable for both localized and broad geographical genotype associations. VNTR profiles of additional cases are required to distinguish the SNP type 1B and 1D strain.