Serological diversity within the species Legionella spiritensis

Abstract

A strain of Legionella isolated from the environment which could not initially be identified was shown by restriction fragment length polymorphisms to be a Legionella spiritensis. This was confirmed by DNA homology studies, cell wall fatty acid composition and isoprenoid quinone analysis. This strain, which is only the second reported representative of the species, was shown to be serologically distinct from the type strain of L. spiritensis and all other serogroups of Legionella.

The determination of ubiquinone profiles by reversed-phase high-performance thin-layer chromatography as an aid to the speciation of Legionellaceae

“…Another strain of Legionella (ML-76) was analysed for its ubiquinone profile and found to be indistinguishable from L. spiritensis, agreeing with the findings of Harrison et al (1988). Also our findings with L. gratiana, in which Q-10 is the predominant ubiquinone, agree with those of Bornstein et al (1989), which were derived using HPLC.…”

“…Differences between analytical methods may account for other minor differences noted between laboratories. RPTLC, like HPLC, when employed to analyse the composition of ubiquinones cannot be used alone to give a definitive identification of a Legionella to species level, but is most useful when used in conjunction with serology, analysis of fatty acids by GLC, autofluorescence, DNA restriction fragment length polymorphisms (Harrison et al, 1988), and most definitively with DNA homology (Brenner et al, 1988).…”

Characterization of Members of the Legionellaceae Family by Automated Ribotyping

“…These results should be further confirmed by other molecular tests such as 16S rRNA gene sequencing or DNA-DNA hybridization studies. (5,7,26,43,48,50). For these species, each Sg seemed to be associated with a given ribotype or ribogroup (L. feeleii Sg 1).…”