Novel <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> Complex Genotype Related to <i>M. caprae</i>

T he Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) comprises multiple species, divided into humanadapted (M. tuberculosis and M. africanum) and animal-adapted (M. bovis, M. orygis, M. caprae, and others) tuberculosis (TB) lineages (1); L8, one of the most recently described, is most likely human-adapted (2). Human-adapted TB has been found to cause disease in certain nonhuman animals and vice versa, but some animal-adapted MTBC species (e.g., M. surricattae, dassie bacillus, chimpanzee bacillus) have not yet been reported to cause disease in humans (3). Several MTBC species and lineages have been newly reported in recent years, in part because of increased global use of highly discriminatory genotyping methods (2,4,5). Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) has helped classify previously misclassified or undetected rare strains, thus helping to fill gaps in the evolutionary history of TB.