ABSTRACT
Objective To examine the foasibility of a new method for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis)"Beijing family"strain identifjcation——RD105 deletion test. Methods Two methods,Spoligotyping and RD105 deletion test,were used for M. tuberculosis"Beijing family"strain identification,respectively. The difference of the two identification methods was compared. Results Three hundred and forty-two clinical isolates from four areas(Beijing,Fujian,Xinjiang and Jilin)were assayed in this study.Among the total samples,261 isolates belonged to"Beijing family"accounting for 76.32%,while the other 81 isolates belonged to"non-Beijing family"accounting for 23.68%. The coincidence rate for these two methods was 100%. Conclusion The simple and rapid new method——RD105 deletion test can be used to identify"Beijing family"instead of the traditional method——Spoligotyping.