Legionella pneumophila—epidemiology and characterization of clinical isolates, Slovenia, 2006–2020

Keše, Darja (author), Obreza, Aljoša (author), Rojko, Tereza (author), Cerar Kišek, Tjaša (author)

Legionella pneumophila is the causative agent of severe Legionnaires’ disease (LD). Although an increasing number of LD cases have been observed, published data from Slovenia are very limited and data on molecular epidemiology are even scarcer. The present retrospective study (2006–2020) reports the results of the microbiological diagnosis of LD, as well as the epidemiology and characterization of the Legionella clinical isolates. We tested urine samples from 15,540 patients with pneumonia symptoms for L. pneumophila infection by urine antigen test, of which 717 (4.6%) tested positive. Isolation of L. pneumophila was successfully performed from 88 clinical specimens, with 82 (93.2%) being identified as L. pneumophila sg 1 and six (6.8%) as L. pneumophila sg 2–14. Sequence-based typing (SBT) identified 33 different sequence types (STs), the most frequent being ST1 and ST23. Sequence type 1 mainly comprised isolates belonging to the Philadelphia subgroup, and ST23 mostly to Allentown/France. The standard SBT scheme, as well as Dresden phenotyping for L. pneumophila, presented a high diversity among isolates.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Legionnaires' disease, diagnosis, epidemiology, Legionella pneumophila typing, cultivation
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: MF - Faculty of Medicine
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 11 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 11, iss. 7, art. 1201
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-135752
• UDC: 616.9
• ISSN on article: 2075-4418
• DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics11071201
• COBISS.SI-ID: 69395715
• Publication date in RUL: 30.03.2022

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Diagnostics
• Shortened title: Diagnostics
• Publisher: MDPI AG
• ISSN: 2075-4418
• COBISS.SI-ID: 519963673

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 02.07.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: legionarska bolezen, diagnoza, epidemiologija

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P3-0083
• Name: Odnosi parazitskega obstajanja