Kowsar Jundishapur J Microbiol 2008-4161 9 9 2016 8 31 10.5812/jjm.35520 Jalil rashedi Research Article 2016 8 7 2015 12 15 2016 8 31 2016 09 30 Background : Years after the development of antituberculosis (TB) drugs, many people continue to suffer from this disease. To control the spread of TB, strains of the Mycobacterium tuberculosiscomplex need to be determined, and sources of infection must be identified. Such steps should help to prevent transmission of the infection. Objectives : The aim of this study was to perform molecular genotyping of isolates of the M. tuberculosiscomplex obtained from patients in northwestern Iran. Methods : One hundred ninety-four culture-positive M. tuberculosisisolates obtained from patients in northwestern Iran were analyzed using the mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit-exact tandem repeats (MIRU-ETR) method. Results : The MIRU-ETR method distinguished 162 different patterns in the 194 isolates, comprising 23 clusters and 139 unique patterns. Its discriminatory power according to the Hunter-Gaston discriminatory index (HGDI) was 0.9978. The largest cluster contained six isolates. Conclusions : This research indicated that various strains of M. tuberculosiswere responsible for TB and that the majority of cases were due to reactivation. http://jjmicrobiol.com/en/articles/56684.html No Link