A Comprehensive Map of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex Regions of Difference

Abstract

Reductive genome evolution is one of the most important and intriguing adaptation strategies of different living organisms to their environment. Mycobacterium offers several notorious examples of either naturally reduced ( Mycobacterium leprae ) or laboratory-reduced ( Mycobacterium bovis BCG) genomes. Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex has its phylogeny unambiguously framed by large sequence polymorphisms that present unidirectional unique event changes. In the present study, we curated all known regions of difference and analyzed both Mycobacterium tuberculosis and animal-adapted MTBC species.