Affiliation:
1. Istituto Cantonale di Microbiologia, Lugano, Switzerland
2. Respiratory and Systemic Infection Laboratory, Specialist and Reference Microbiology Division, Health Protection Agency, Colindale, London, United Kingdom
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Seven gene loci of
Legionella pneumophila
serogroup 1 were analyzed as potential epidemiological typing markers to aid in the investigation of legionella outbreaks. The genes chosen included four likely to be selectively neutral (
acn
,
groES
,
groEL
, and
recA
) and three likely to be under selective pressure (
flaA
,
mompS
, and
proA
). Oligonucleotide primers were designed to amplify 279- to 763-bp fragments from each gene. Initial sequence analysis of the seven loci from 10 well-characterized isolates of
L. pneumophila
serogroup 1 gave excellent reproducibility (
R
) and epidemiological concordance (
E
) values (
R
= 1.00;
E
= 1.00). The three loci showing greatest discrimination and nucleotide variation,
flaA
,
mompS
, and
proA
, were chosen for further study. Indices of discrimination (
D
) were calculated using a panel of 79 unrelated isolates. Single loci gave
D
values ranging from 0.767 to 0.857, and a combination of all three loci resulted in a
D
value of 0.924. When all three loci were combined with monoclonal antibody subgrouping, the
D
value was 0.971. Sequence-based typing of
L. pneumophila
serogroup 1 using only three loci is epidemiologically concordant and highly discriminatory and has the potential to become the new “gold standard” for the epidemiological typing of
L. pneumophila
.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Cited by
93 articles.
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