TY - JOUR AU - Bacigalupe, Rodrigo AU - Lindsay, Diane AU - Edwards, Giles AU - Fitzgerald, J. Ross T1 - Population Genomics of Legionella longbeachae and Hidden Complexities of Infection Source Attribution T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2017 VL - 23 IS - 5 SP - 750 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Legionella longbeachae is the primary cause of legionellosis in Australasia and Southeast Asia and an emerging pathogen in Europe and the United States; however, our understanding of the population diversity of L. longbeachae from patient and environmental sources is limited. We analyzed the genomes of 64 L. longbeachae isolates, of which 29 were from a cluster of legionellosis cases linked to commercial growing media in Scotland in 2013 and 35 were non–outbreak-associated isolates from Scotland and other countries. We identified extensive genetic diversity across the L. longbeachae species, associated with intraspecies and interspecies gene flow, and a wide geographic distribution of closely related genotypes. Of note, we observed a highly diverse pool of L. longbeachae genotypes within compost samples that precluded the genetic establishment of an infection source. These data represent a view of the genomic diversity of L. longbeachae that will inform strategies for investigating future outbreaks. KW - Legionella longbeachae KW - legionellosis KW - legionella KW - outbreaks KW - epidemiology KW - phylogeny KW - recombination KW - plasmids KW - bacteria KW - genomic diversity KW - environmental genotypes KW - pathogenic genotypes KW - source attribution KW - Scotland KW - United Kingdom KW - Pneumonia DO - 10.3201/eid2305.161165 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/23/5/16-1165_article ER - End of Reference