Extraction of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA: a question of containment.

DNA fingerprinting of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis requires substantial high-quality DNA. We demonstrated that, despite extraction treatments that might be expected to inactivate this organism, M. tuberculosis remained viable during this process. These data suggest that the extraction of M. tuberculosis DNA should be performed within containment until complete.