The insertion sequence IS1245 is a novel mycobacterial repetitive element identified in Mycobacterium avium. It encodes a transposase which exhibits a 64% amino acid similarity with IS1081, an insertion element present in the M. tuberculosis complex. The host range of IS1245 appears limited to M. avium as this element was not identified in M. intracellulare or in any other of 18 mycobacteria species tested. When IS1245 was used for restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis, human isolates characteristically presented a high number of copies (median, 16; range, 3 to 27) and a diversity of RFLP patterns comparable to that found by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Isolates from nonhuman sources differed both in number of copies and in RFLP pattern diversity: while swine isolates shared the characteristics of human strains, those from several avian sources exhibited a very low copy number of IS1245 and appeared clonal on the basis of RFLP.