Most Evofosfamide price of the strains in Focus F were clustered together, including 14 strains for MT76 and the other six strains presenting in 6 MTs. On the other hand, strains from the same focus were dispersed in the cluster tree. For example, strains isolated from Focus G were dispersed in complex 1, 3 and 4, and strains from Focus C were scattered in complex 1 and 4. MLVA comparison of Yersinia pestis in Yulong and

the adjacent foci Five strains isolated from Yulong, Yunnan had the same MT (MT17: 2-2-2-4-4-7-7-6-2-4-3-3-3-5). Three MTs with a difference in only one locus from MT17 were as follows: MT18 (click here 2-2-2-4-4-7-7-7-2-4-3-3-3-5), including the strains from Foci C and G, had one copy difference on locus M58 with MT17; MT16 (2-2-2-4-4-7-7-6-2-4-3-2-3-5), including a strain which was isolated from Focus H, had one copy difference on locus M51 with MT17; MT29 (2-2-2-4-4-7-7-6-2-4-3-3-3-4), including a strain which was isolated from Focus C, had one copy difference on locus M37 with

MT17. The geographic locations of the natural plague foci adjacent to Yulong were C, E, and F (Figure 3). All the strains from Focus F were Orientalis, and the strains from Foci C, E and Yulong (Focus P) were Antiqua. A further MT comparisons between the Yulong strains and the strains isolated from Foci C and E were as follows: compared with Focus C, It was found that the five Yulong strains and five Focus C strains (belonging to MT29 to MT 33,) were clustered into group D (Figure 1); compared with Focus E, we found one copy SC79 difference located at three loci (M66, M58, and M54) in MT35 (major MT) and one copy difference located at four loci (M66, M58, M54,

and M49) in MT23 (major MT); The MST analysis (Figure 2) showed that strains from Foci P, C, and E had a close relationship, and almost all strains belonged to one group. Discussion In 2001, Klevytska et al. performed a systematic, whole genome analysis of Y. pestis Fossariinae CO92, and found that TRSs were widespread and randomly distributed in the bacterial chromosomes and plasmids [12]. Subsequent studies had shown that MLVA could distinguish Y. pestis isolated from different natural plague foci [13–15, 20]. Our results showed that the loci selected in this study can distinguish the strains from different natural plague foci and even from the same focus. 214 Y. pestis strains used in this study were divided into 85 MTs. Simpson’s diversity index was 0.9790, indicating that the probability of two unrelated strains being characterized as the same type was 2.10% (1 – 0.9790), showing high resolution and the combination of these 14 loci could be used as a typing method for Y. pestis with the generally accepted probability of 5% of type I errors [21].