Comparative Analysis of Genetic Typing Methods for Bacillus anthracis
Molecular typing of the anthrax used in epidemiological investigations and serves as a tool to study the evolution of the pathogenic species. Analytical, technical and economic capabilities of the most use modern genotyping methods for B. anthracis were studied. It was established that canSNP-genotyping resolved 23 strains of B. anthracis into 10 genotypes with diversity index DI 0.8261. DI for MLST was not more then 0.5495–0.5790 depending on set of strains. DI to MLVA-15, 25 and 31 was the same and equals 0.9881. Analysis of core genome region SNP of 181 strains provided highest discriminative power (DI = 1). MVLST with DI equal to the 0.9960 as well as SNR analysis revealed differences between genotypes isolates from one outbreak. Conclusion: CanSNP13-genotyping is quite enough as a preliminary stage to resolve strains into main genetic lineages. MLST of B. anthracis due to the low resolution and complexity, and MLVST, in spite of the high resolution because of the duration and labor intensity of research, are impractical. Identity of isolates from one anthrax outbreak can be established using the MLVA15-31, subtle differences between them - by SNR and core genome SNP analysis.