A5030835975- Mycobacterium research and diagnosis
- Tuberculosis Research and Epidemiology
- Animal Disease Management and Epidemiology
- Microbial infections and disease research
- Infectious Diseases and Tuberculosis
- Diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis
- Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock
- Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Bacteriophages and microbial interactions
- Zoonotic diseases and public health
- Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
- Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Viral Infections and Vectors
- Viral Infections and Immunology Research
- Cancer-related molecular mechanisms research
- Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies
- Identification and Quantification in Food
- RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms
- Human-Animal Interaction Studies
- Brucella: diagnosis, epidemiology, treatment
- Monoclonal and Polyclonal Antibodies Research
- Veterinary medicine and infectious diseases
- Species Distribution and Climate Change
- Salmonella and Campylobacter epidemiology
- Genetic diversity and population structure
Agri Food and Biosciences Institute
2016-2025
Queen's University Belfast
1985-2020
Government of Northern Ireland
1994-2017
Department of Agriculture and Rural Development
2000-2005
University of Reading
1991-1992
National Institute for Biological Standards and Control
1992
Molecular typing based on 12 loci containing variable numbers of tandem repeats mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units (MIRU-VNTRs) has been adopted in combination with spoligotyping as the basis for large-scale, high-throughput genotyping Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However, even these two methods is still less discriminatory than IS6110 fingerprinting. Here, we define an optimized set MIRU-VNTR a significantly higher power. The resolution and stability/robustness 29 were analyzed,...
Abstract Background The Direct Repeat locus of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) is a member CRISPR (Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) sequences family. Spoligotyping widely used PCR-based reverse-hybridization blotting technique that assays genetic diversity this and useful both for clinical laboratory, molecular epidemiology, evolutionary population genetics. It easy, robust, cheap, produces highly diverse portable numerical results, as result...
The lack of a convenient high-resolution strain-typing method has hampered the application molecular epidemiology to surveillance bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, particularly monitoring strains bovis . With recent availability genome sequences for M. novel PCR-based -typing methods have been developed, which target variable-number tandem repeats (VNTRs) minisatellite-like mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units (MIRUs), or exact (ETRs). This paper describes identification...
Summary Studies of tuberculosis have suggested a shift in dominance from T helper type 1 (Th1) towards Th2 immune response that is associated with suppressed cell‐mediated (CMI) responses and increased humoral as the disease progresses. In this study natural host model was used to investigate balance evolving Mycobacterium bovis infection cattle respect pathogenesis. Cytokine analysis CD4 T‐cell clones derived M. ‐infected animals gave some indication there possible relationship between...
Whole genome sequencing (WGS) technology holds great promise as a tool for the forensic epidemiology of bacterial pathogens. It is likely to be particularly useful studying transmission dynamics an observed epidemic involving largely unsampled ‘reservoir’ host, bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in British and Irish cattle badgers. BTB caused by Mycobacterium bovis, member M. complex that also includes aetiological agent human TB. In this study, we identified spatio-temporally linked group 26 4...
Quantifying pathogen transmission in multi-host systems is difficult, as exemplified bovine tuberculosis (bTB) systems, but crucial for control. The agent of bTB, Mycobacterium bovis, persists cattle populations worldwide, often where potential wildlife reservoirs exist. However, the relative contribution different host species to bTB persistence generally unknown. In Britain, role badgers infection highly contentious, despite decades research and control efforts. We applied Bayesian...
Successful eradication schemes for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) have been implemented in a number of European and other countries over the last 50 years. However, islands Britain Ireland remain significant aberration to this trend, with recent exception Scotland. Why failed within these countries, while apparently similar programs successful elsewhere? While socio-economic political factors discussed elsewhere as key determinants disease eradication, here we review some potential ecological...
In the European Union, recommended ante-mortem diagnostic methods for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) include single intradermal cervical comparative tuberculin (SICCT) test and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) as an ancillary test. The SICCT has a moderate sensitivity (Se) high specificity (Sp), while IFN-γ good Se, but lower Sp than A retrospective Bayesian latent class analysis was conducted on 71,185 cattle from 806 herds chronically infected with bTB distributed across Northern Ireland (NI) to...
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a costly, epidemiologically complex, multi-host, endemic disease. Lack of understanding transmission dynamics may undermine eradication efforts. Pathogen whole-genome sequencing improves epidemiological inferences, providing means to determine the relative importance inter- and intra-species host for disease persistence. We sequenced an exceptional data set 619 Mycobacterium bovis isolates from badgers cattle in 100 km 2 bTB ‘hotspot’ Northern Ireland. Historical...
ABSTRACT Various genetic markers have been exploited for fingerprinting the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) in molecular epidemiological studies, mainly through identifying restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP). In large-scale RFLP typing has practical processing and analysis limitations; therefore, attempts made to move towards PCR-based techniques. Spoligotyping (spacer oligotyping) and, more recently, variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) provided PCR-derived This...
Mycobacterium bovis is the causal agent of bovine tuberculosis, one most important diseases currently facing UK cattle industry. Here, we use high-density whole genome sequencing (WGS) in a defined sub-population M. 145 across 66 herd breakdowns to gain insights into local spread and persistence. We show that despite low divergence among isolates, WGS can principle expose contributions under-sampled host populations transmission. However, demonstrate our data such signal due molecular type...
This study confirms that different preparations of Taq DNA polymerase are contaminated with eubacterial DNA. The contaminants appeared to represent more than one strain or species but were not identified as Thermus aquaticus Escherichia coli. Differences in microcentrifuge tube composition affect elimination the contaminants.
ABSTRACT In recent years various novel DNA typing methods have been developed which are faster and easier to perform than the current internationally standardized IS 6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism method. However, there has no overview of utility these methods, it is largely unknown how they compare previously published methods. this study, discriminative power reproducibility nine recently described PCR-based for Mycobacterium tuberculosis were investigated using strain...
Abstract Understanding how emergent pathogens successfully establish themselves and persist in previously unaffected populations is a crucial problem disease ecology, with important implications for management. In multi‐host pathogen systems this particularly difficult, as the importance of each host species to transmission often poorly characterised, epidemiology complex. Opportunities observe analyse such scenarios are few. Here, we exploit unique dataset combining densely collected data...
ABSTRACT The Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing family isolates may cause more than a quarter of all cases worldwide, are emerging in some areas, and often associated with drug resistance. Early recognition transmission this genotype is therefore important. To evaluate the usefulness variable-number tandem-repeat (VNTR) typing to discriminate recognize strains family, M. from Hong Kong were subjected VNTR analysis, spoligotyping, IS 6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP)...
Two methods, based on analysis of the polymerase chain reaction-amplified 16S rRNA gene by restriction enzyme (REA) or direct cycle sequencing, were developed for rapid identification mycobacteria isolated from animals and compared to traditional phenotypic typing. BACTEC 7H12 cultures specimens examined "cording," specific reaction amplification was performed identify presence tubercle complex mycobacteria. Combined results separate REAs with HhaI, MspI, MboI, ThaI differentiated 12 15...