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Volume 7, Number 3—June 2001
Research

Molecular Epidemiology of Serogroup A Meningitis in Moscow, 1969 to 1997

Mark Achtman*Comments to Author , Arie van der Ende†, Peixuan Zhu*, Irina S. Koroleva‡, Barica Kusecek*, Giovanna Morelli*, Ilse G.A. Schuurman†, Norbert Brieske*, Kerstin Zurth*, Natalya N. Kostyukova§, and Alexander E. Platonov‡
Author affiliations: *Max-Planck Institut für Molekulare Genetik, Berlin, Germany; †Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; ‡Central Research Institute of Epidemiology, Moscow, Russia; §N.F. Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Moscow, Russia

Main Article

Table 4

Hypervariable alleles among subgroup III meningococci isolated in Moscow

Locus
Strains No. tbpB iga pgm IS1106 opaA opaB opaD opaJ
agenocloud 1 1 2 3 A10 132 92 131 101
genocloud 3 1 2 3 A4 132 92 131 101
genocloud 5 1 3 3 A4 132 94 100 101
genocloud 8 55 2 19 A7 132 92 131 101
Moscow genocloud 2
1969-1973 14 38 2 3 A10 132 140 131 101
1970 1 38 2 3 A10 132 113 131 101
1977 1 38 2 3 A10 132 140 110 101
1977 1 38 2 3 ndb 132 140 109 101
Moscow genocloud 8
1994-1997 21 55 2 19 A7 132 92 131 101

aData for the genoclouds at the top of the table are from a separate manuscript (23). Sources of genoclouds: 1, China, 1966; 3, pre-Mecca isolates (1969-1984) from Europe, Brazil and China; 5, post-Mecca isolates (1987-1998) from Africa and pilgrims returning from Mecca in 1987 to various countries; and 8, China, Mongolia, and Africa, 1993-2000. All serogroup A isolates from Moscow that were assigned to subgroup III by random amplification of polymorphic DNA are included in this table. The opaA and opaJ alleles have not been tested in all bacteria from the various genoclouds because they are otherwise so uniform.
bnd = not determined because this strain yields an unusual 12-kb polymerase chain reaction product for the IS1106A region.

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