A Surveillance Study of Cooling Tower Water of Large Buildings in Seoul City for Legionella Species with Molecular Analysis.
- Author:
Kwon Beom KIM
1
;
Woo Joo KIM
;
Min Ja KIM
;
Seung Chul PARK
;
Se Hwa YOU
;
Hee Sun SHIM
;
Hee Jin HAM
;
Suk Gi PARK
Author Information
1. Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, Korea University.
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords:
Legionella;
Cooling tower;
PFGE;
AP-PCR
- MeSH:
Decontamination;
Discrimination (Psychology);
Disease Outbreaks;
Legionella pneumophila;
Legionella*;
Legionellosis;
Mass Screening;
Molecular Typing;
Seoul*;
Water*
- From:Korean Journal of Infectious Diseases
1998;30(3):207-217
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
BACKGROUND: To prevent and control legionellosis outbreaks, it is important to monitor cooling towers for Legionella and establish epidemiological markers. We determined level of contamination with Legionella of cooling tower in Seoul city, analyzed the distribution of Legionella subtypes, and evaluated molecular typing methods for discrimination power and feasibility. METHODS: Water samples from 120 cooling towers in 25 areas(Gu) of Seoul city were collected during June, 1997. Culture and duplex-PCR(polymerase chain reaction) with Southern hybridization probed with Legionella-specific genes were performed with filtered samples. Twenty-two Legionella isolates were analyzed comparatively by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis(PFGE) and arbitrarily primed(AP)-PCR using a M13 reverse primer. RESULTS: Culture and duplex-PCR with Southern hybridization were positive for Legionella in 22(18.3%) and 106(88.3%) of 120 samples, respectively, resulting in 90.8%(109/120) of contamination level. Out of 22 Legionella isolates, 17 were identified as Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1, 4 as L. pneumophila serogroup 6 and 1 as an unknown. Molecular analysis of 17 isolates of L. pneumophila serogroup 1 showed 7 subtypes by PFGE(A0 in 9 isolates; A1, 2; A2, 1; A3, 2; B, 1; C, 1; D, 1) and 5 subtypes by AP-PCR(Ia in 11 isolates; Ib, 2; Ic, 2; II, 1; III, 1). The agreement of results of both methods was 76.5%(13/17) of L. pneumophila serogroup 1 and 81.8%(18/22) of all isolates, respectively. CONCLUSION: Most of cooling towers in Seoul city were already contaminated with Legionella just before summer, requiring decontamination measures and continuous surveillance. L. pneumophila serogroup 1 was the predominant isolate with variable subtypes. The AP-PCR can be used as a rapid and reproducible screening tool in tracking legionellosis outbreak.
