THE FIRST CLINICAL ISOLATE OF LEGIONELLA-PARISIENSIS, FROM A LIVER-TRANSPLANT PATIENT WITH PNEUMONIA

A bluish white autofluorescent strain of Legionella was isolated from the tracheal aspirate of a female liver transplant patient who develop ed hospital-acquired pneumonia. This strain had biochemical characteri stics compatible with those of L. cherrii, L. anisa, and L. parisiensi s and could not be differentiated from L., bozemanii and L. parisiensi s by the direct fluorescent-antibody assay. Phylogenetic analysis of p artial 16S rRNA gene sequences of this strain (ATCC 700174) revealed t he closest homology to the species L. parisiensis (99.5%). An L. paris iensis species-specific profile was also identified by a random amplif ied polymorphic DNA technique. This is the first report of L. parisien sis isolation from humans.