Comparison of in situ sequence type analysis of Legionella pneumophila in respiratory tract secretions and environmental samples of a hospital in East Jerusalem
Date
2018-08-30Author
Jaber, Lina
Amro, Mahmod
Abu Tair, Hadeel
Bahader, Shereen A.
Alalam, Hanna
Butmeh, Suha
Abu Hilal, Dalia
Brettar, Ingrid
Höfle, Manfred G.
Bitar, Dina M.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Legionella pneumophila genotyping is important for epidemiological investigation of nosocomial
and community-acquired outbreaks of legionellosis. The prevalence of legionellosis in
pneumonia patients in the West Bank was monitored for the first time, and the sequence
types (STs) from respiratory samples were compared with STs of environmental samples
from different wards of the hospital. Sputum (n = 121) and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL)
(n = 74) specimens were cultured for L. pneumophila; genomic DNA was tested by 16S
rRNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification. Nested PCR sequence-based typing
(NPSBT) was implemented on DNA of the respiratory and environmental PCR-positive samples.
Only one respiratory specimen was positive for L. pneumophila by culture. BAL gave a
higher percentage of L. pneumophila-positive samples, 35% (26/74) than sputum, 15% (18/
121) by PCR. NPSBT revealed the following STs: ST 1 (29%, 7/24), ST 461 (21%, 5/24), ST
1037 (4%, 1/24) from respiratory samples, STs from environmental samples: ST 1 (28.5%,
4/14), ST 187 (21.4%, 3/14) and ST 2070, ST 461, ST 1482 (7.1%, 1/14) each. This study
emphasises the advantage of PCR over culture for the detection of L. pneumophila in countries
where antibiotics are indiscriminately used prior to hospital admission. ST 1 was the predominant
ST in both respiratory and environmental samples.