Genetic diversity of multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates and identification of 11 novel rpoB alleles in Taiwan

Of 162 multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Taiwan, 60.5% were found to belong to the Beijing family on the basis of spoligotyping results. IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism fingerprinting showed genetic diversity among the multidrug-resistant isolates. Furthermore, 90.1% of the multidrug-resistant isolates had mutations in the rpoB gene, and 11 novel alleles were recognized.