%0 Journal Article %A M J Cole %A S A Chisholm %A H M Palmer %A L A Wallace %A C A Ison %T Molecular epidemiology of syphilis in Scotland %D 2009 %R 10.1136/sti.2009.036301 %J Sexually Transmitted Infections %P 447-451 %V 85 %N 6 %X Objective: To examine the molecular epidemiology of syphilis in Scotland.Methods: Ulcer specimens were collected from 85 patients with infectious syphilis. Typing of Treponema pallidum was performed using a method that examines variation in two loci; the number of 60-basepair repeats within the arp gene and sequence variation in the tpr genes.Results: Patients were predominately white men who have sex with men (MSM). Treponemal DNA was detected in 75 specimens and a total of six subtypes were identified from 58 typeable specimens (77%). The most common subtypes were 14d (44/58, 76%), followed by 14e (7/58, 12%), 14j (3/58, 5%), 14b (2/58, 3%), 14p and 14k (1/58, 2%).Conclusions: This study shows that subtype 14d is the predominant subtype circulating in Scotland and there is a surprising level of genetic diversity within the Scottish MSM community. %U https://sti.bmj.com/content/sextrans/85/6/447.full.pdf