Tuberculosis China SSA012166

The diversity of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis strains in China: tracing the origins of the worldwide dispersion of the multidrug-resistant Beijing genotype.

List of participants :
Partner 1: Christine POURCEL, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France
Partner 2: Dick van SOOLINGEN, Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Partner 3: Kanglin WAN, Beijing, China

Summary of the proposed project and achievements :
The main goals of this project are :
1) To organize the collect, storage and analysis of a large collection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains (6000) from the 31 Provinces of China, and of information on TB patients who provided samples
2) To create a database and perform epidemiological studies to identify the origin of the Beijing lineage. The data will be compared to the characteristics of strains collected in other countries> This will produce knowledge on the diversity of Chinese TB strains and show whether the dispersion of the Beijing type is of clonal origin.

The present SSA aims at preparing the project in collaboration with chinese scientists headed by Pr Wan Kanglin, transfer the technical knowledge, follow the progress of the experiments, collect the data in a shared-database and produce population analyses.

During the first year we have defined the characteristics of the patients to be included in the protocol and we have chosen the appropriate methods for collecting and storing strains, for genotyping and multidrug-resistance assessments. These tasks were performed in close collaboration by the teams in Orsay (Christine Pourcel co-ordinator of the SSA and Gilles Vergnaud) and in Bilthoven (Dick van Soolingen, partner 2 and Kristin Kremer).
As a pilot assay we have concentrated our work on TB strains isolated in the Beijing Province. Data on the BCG status, age and gender of the patients as well as other relevant clinical information have been collected. Technical knowledge has been transmitted to the Chinese CDC in Beijing.