Legionella spp. present in some human-made water systems can cause Legionnaires' disease in susceptible individuals. Although legionellae have been isolated from the natural environment, variations in the organism's abundance over time and its relationship to aquatic microbiota are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the presence and diversity of legionellae through 16S rRNA gene amplicon ...

BACKGROUND Legionella species cause severe forms of pneumonia with high mortality and complication rates. Accurate clinical predictors to assess the likelihood of Legionella community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in patients presenting to the emergency department are lacking. METHODS We retrospectively compared clinical and laboratory data of 82 consecutive patients with Legionella CAP with 368 c...

We examined 40 strains of Legionella for reduced-oxygen scavenging enzymes. Using a simple reaction chamber with a Swinney filter for the Beers and Sizer assay, we determined the catalase activity of live cells grown on buffered charcoal-yeast extract agar. For 29 strains of Legionella pneumophila, the apparent first-order rate constants for catalase ranged from 0.000 to 0.005. Similarly, low v...

In this study, we describe a nested PCR-DGGE strategy to detect Legionella communities from river water samples. The nearly full-length 16S rRNA gene was amplified using bacterial primer in the first step. After, the amplicons were employed as DNA templates in the second PCR using Legionella specific primer. The third round of gene amplification was conducted to gain PCR fragments apposite for ...

Cooling towers (CTs) are a leading source of outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease (LD), a severe form of pneumonia caused by inhalation of aerosols containing Legionella bacteria. Accordingly, proper maintenance of CTs is vital for the prevention of LD. The aim of this study was to determine the distribution of Legionella in a subset of regionally diverse US CTs and characterize the associated mi...

Water environments appear to be the habitats of Legionella species. Legionellosis is considered as a preventable illness because bacterial reservoirs can be controlled and removed. Roof-harvested rainwater has attracted significant attention not only as a groundwater recharge but also as a potential alternative source of nonpotable water. We successfully developed ceramic microbeads coated with...

fertilizer, and manure. Thirty-one strains of Legionella were recovered (table 1). L. longbeachae serogroup 1 was isolated from 8 samples; L. bozemanii serogroup 1, 9; Legionella micdadei, 5; Legionella pneumophila serogroup 4, 1; and L. pneumophila serogroup 12, 1. An unidentifiable Legionella species was isolated from four soil samples; Legionella gormanii, Legionella birminghamensis, and Leg...

Legionella anisa is one of the most frequent species of Legionella other than Legionella pneumophila in the environment and may be hospital acquired in rare cases. We found that L. anisa may mask water contamination by L. pneumophila, suggesting that there is a risk of L. pneumophila infection in immunocompromised patients if water is found to be contaminated with Legionella species other than ...

To understand how adaptive immune responses are generated against bacteria that avoid being delivered to lysosomes, interactions between professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and the intracellular pathogen Legionella pneumophila were examined. In contrast to murine bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMMs), we show that dendritic cells (DCs) restrict the growth of intracellular Legionella. ...