RESUMO
Recently, PCR-based typing would be of great value for Epidemiological investigation to identify infectious source of leprosy, understand transmission pattern, and distinguish between relapse & re-infection. Variable TTC DNA repeats in non-coding region and 6bp(GACATC) tandem repeats in rpoT gene revealed PCR products of different size may be useful to investigate the epidemiology of leprosy. Authors have typed clinical isolates of M. leprae in Korea using difference of TTC DNA repeats in non-coding region and 6bp(ACATCG) tandem repeats in rpoT gene. Of the sequence analysis of isolates(M. leprae) of 52 patients(44 Koreans, 8 foreigners; Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippine, Sri Lanka, Thailand) M. leprae with 12 TTC repeats was showed most common(13 cases, 29.5%) in 44 Korean isolates and 42 Koreans(95.5% of Korean isolates) isolates demonstrated four copies of 6bp(ACATCG) tandem repeats in rpoT gene and the isolates with three copies were found in 2 Koreans and 8 foreigners.