| Autor: |
Amemura-Maekawa J; Department of Bacteriology I, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan., Kura F; Department of Bacteriology I, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan., Helbig JH; Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany., Chang B; Department of Bacteriology I, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan., Kaneko A; Yamagata Prefectural Institute of Public Health, Yamagata, Japan., Watanabe Y; Kanagawa Prefectural Institute of Public Health, Kanagawa, Japan., Isobe J; Toyama Institute of Health, Toyama, Japan., Nukina M; Public Health Research Institute of Kobe City, Hyogo, Japan., Nakajima H; Okayama Prefectural Institute for Environmental Science and Public Health, Okayama, Japan., Kawano K; Miyazaki Prefectural Institute for Public Health and Environment, Miyazaki, Japan., Tada Y; Infectious Disease Surveillance Center, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan., Watanabe H; Department of Bacteriology I, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan., The Working Group For In Japan; Department of Bacteriology I, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan. |
| Abstrakt: |
We collected 86 unrelated clinical Legionella pneumophila strains that were isolated in Japan during the period 1980-2008. Most (80.2%) belonged to serogroup 1, followed by serogroups 5, 3 and 2. Interestingly, the patients with L. pneumophila serogroup 1 had a significantly higher male-to-female ratio (12.4) than the patients with other L. pneumophila serogroups (2.0) (OR, 10.5; 95% CI, 2.5-44.5). When the serogroup 1 strains were analysed by monoclonal antibody (mAb) typing, the most prevalent subgroup was Benidorm (34.9% of all isolates). Moreover, 79.7% of the serogroup 1 isolates were bound by mAb 3/1, which recognizes the virulence-associated epitope. When all 86 isolates were subjected to sequence-based typing (SBT) using seven loci, they could be divided into 53 sequence types (STs). The ST with the most isolates (seven) was ST1, to which most isolates from patients and environments around the world belong. However, six of the seven ST1 isolates were isolated before 1994. Other major STs were ST306 (n=6), ST120 (n=5) and ST138 (n=5). All ST306 and ST138 isolates, except for one isolate (ST306), were suspected or confirmed to be derived from bath water, which suggests that these strains prefer bath habitats. The sources of all ST1 and ST120 isolates remain unclear. By combining the SBT and mAb data, the 86 isolates could be divided into 59 types (discrimination index, 0.984). This confirms the usefulness of this combination in epidemiological studies. |
