Bhaskar C Harinath, Lingaraja Jena, Gauri Wankhade and Pranita Waghmare
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), the causal organism of the oldest infectious disease tuberculosis is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. This pathogenic organism has been evolved into variety of strains with diverse genotype, phenotype and pathogenic properties such as MTB H37Rv and CDC1551 strains which are virulent, while MTB H37Ra is an a virulent strain and MTB KZN strain is resistant to different antituberculosis drugs. Due to the advancement in genome sequencing and molecular biology, whole genomes of different MTB strains have been completely sequenced. Genomic as well as proteomic comparison among the sequenced strains will help in understanding the differences between virulent, a virulent and resistant organisms. This article reviews the information available on completely sequenced MTB strains and presents the studies reported by researchers on genomic and proteomic comparison of various MTB strains.