Usefulness of mycobacterial interspersed repetitive-unit locus PCR amplification in rapid diagnosis of Beijing lineage strain infection among pediatric tuberculosis patients

We assessed the usefulness of mycobacterial interspersed repetitive-unit-variable-number tandem-repeat loci 26, 31, ETR-A, Mtub30, and Mtub02 and a deletion-targeted multiplex PCR in identifying pediatric Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing lineage strain infection. We found that the Beijing lineage isolates accounted for ∼ 62% (130/210) of the study isolates.