Table 2. Distribution of copy numbers of seven different short tandem repeat loci in the 43 Malawi biopsies.

Number of Copies	Short tandem repeat locus
	ML2172	ML2334	ML1505	ML1182	ML0058	ML2469	ML2418
1					8
2					29	43	43
3					6
4				4
5				39
6			32
7	1		9
8	18
9	19	4
10	4	8
11	1
12		11
13		1
14		2
15		4
16		11
17		2
M. leprae (reference)	8 copies	10 copies	7 copies	5 copies	2 copies	2 copies	2 copies
M. leprae (sequence)	9 copies	21 copies	7 copies	5 copies	3 copies	3 copies	5 copies

Numbers in the table give the number of biopsies with each particular number of copies of each of seven tandem repeat loci. The “reference” strain was derived from a patient in USA; the “sequence” strain was derived from a South Indian patient (Cole et al, 2001).