A hospital-associated outbreak of Legionnaires' disease caused by Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 is characterized by stable genetic fingerprinting but variable monoclonal antibody patterns.

ABSTRACT: An outbreak of 18 pneumonia cases caused by Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 occurred at a Swedish university hospital 1996 to 1999. Eight clinical isolates obtained by culture from the respiratory tract were compared to 20 environmental isolates from the hospital and to 21 epidemiologically unrelated isolates in Sweden, mostly from patients, by using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis (AFLP), and monoclonal antibody (MAb) typing. All patients and most environmental isolates from the outbreak hospital belonged to the same genotypic cluster in both PFGE and AFLP. This genotype was distinctly different from other strains, including a cluster from a second hospital in a different part of the country. The MAb subtype of the outbreak clone

SUBMITTER: Bernander S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC156525 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature