Available at www.sciencedirect.com j ournal home pa g e: htt p://intl.elsevierhealth.com/ j ournals/tube Mutations in DNA repair genes are associated with the Haarlem lineage of Mycobacterium tuberculosis independently of their antibiotic resistance Juanita Olano a ,BeatrizLo´pez b , Alejandro Reyes a , Marı ´a del Pilar Lemos a , Nidia Correa c,d , Patricia Del Portillo a , Lucia Barrera b , Jaime Robledo c,d , Viviana Ritacco b,e , Marı ´a Mercedes Zambrano a,Ã a Corporacio ´n Corpogen, Carrera 5 No. 66A-34, Bogota´, Colombia b Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Infecciosas INEI ANLIS ‘‘Carlos G. Malbra´n’’, Velez Sarslfield 563, Buenos Aires, Argentina c Corporacio ´n para Investigaciones Biolo ´gicas, CIB, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Carrera 72 % a No. 78B-141, Medellı ´n, Colombia d Escuela de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellı ´n, Colombia e Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientı ´ficas y Te´cnicas, CONICET, Rivadavia 1917, Buenos Aires, Argentina Received 7 December 2006; received in revised form 9 January 2007; accepted 21 May 2007 KEYWORDS Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis; Single nucleotide polymorphism; DNA repair enzymes Summary The analysis of the DNA repair genes ogt and ung was carried out in 117 Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates from Argentina and Colombia in order to explore correlation between mutations in these genes and multi-drug resistance. With the exception of two Beijing family isolates, the rest of the strains harbored either two wild-type or two mutant alleles with identical single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in each gene (ogt44 and ung501). These ogt44 and ung501 mutations were not associated with multi-drug resistance and occurred simultaneously in circulating Haarlem genotype M. tuberculosis strains. We therefore propose the use of these markers as tools in phylogenetic and epidemiologic studies. & 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of human tuberculosis (TB), is an ancient and very successful human pathogen that is estimated to be currently infecting one third of the population worldwide. 1 Its long history of ARTICLE IN PRESS 1472-9792/$ - see front matter & 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tube.2007.05.011 Ã Corresponding author. Tel.: +57 1 348 4610; fax: +57 1 348 4607. E-mail address: mechas@telesat.com.co (M. Mercedes Zambrano). Tuberculosis (2007) 87, 502–508