Bacillus anthracis is the causal agent of anthrax and has a history of use
as a biological weapon. Anthrax cases occur worldwide and the disease is
endemic in certain regions. Here we describe a study of the genetic diversity
of B. anthracis strains in two endemic areas: The country of Georgia and the
Kars region of Turkey. Thirty Turkish isolates and thirty Georgian isolates were
subjected to Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) sub typing, followed by
higher-resolution genotyping using 25-loci variable-number tandem repeat
analysis (MLVA-25). Canonical SNP typing indicated that Turkish strains
belonged to both the A.Br.003 linage and the Australian 94 lineage. In light of
a recent analysis that placed the majority of Georgian B. anthracis isolates in
one phylogenetic group, we screened the Turkish strains using a previously
developed Georgian SNP panel. Minimal diversity was observed among the
Kars strains within the Georgian SNP lineage: all 30 of these strains grouped
with A.Br.026, ten strains were derived from A.Br.028, and only two isolates
belonged to A.Br.029. According to the results of MLVA-25 genotyping, all 30
Turkish strains belong to two clusters. Cluster A is more diverse than cluster
B. Our results suggest that B. anthracis strains originating from Georgia and
the northeastern part of Turkey are genetically interrelated, which could be
explained by the geographic proximity of the countries
