Molecular typing of Legionella pneumophila from air-conditioning cooling waters using mip gene, SBT, and FAFLP methods

Legionella spp. are important waterborne pathogens. Molecular typing has become an important method for outbreaks investigations and source tracking of Legionnaires. In a survey program conducted by the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, multiple serotypes Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) were isolated from waters in air-conditioning cooling towers in urban Guangzhou region, China between 2008 and 2011. Three genotyping methods, mip (macrophage infectivity potentiator) genotyping, SBT (sequence-based typing), and FAFLP (fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis) were used to type these waterborne L. pneumophila isolates. The three methods were capable of typing all the 134 isolates and a reference strain of L. pneumophila (ATCC33153), with discriminatory indices of 0.7034, 0.9218, and 0.9376, for the mip, SBT, and FAFLP methods respectively. Among the 9 serotypes of the 134 isolates, 10, 50, and 34 molecular types were detected by the mip, SBT, and FAFLP methods respectively. The mip genotyping and SBT typing are more feasible for inter-laboratory results sharing and comparison of different types of L. pneumophila. The SBT and FAFLP typing methods were rapid with higher discriminatory abilities. Combinations of two or more of the typing methods enables more accurate typing of Legionella isolates for outbreak investigations and source tracking of Legionnaires.