Isolation of Legionellae from Oxidation Ponds and Fishponds in Israel and Description of Legionella israelensis sp. nov.

Strains of Legionella pneumophila serogroup 4 and Legionella bozemanii and three strains of a new species, for which the name Legionella israelensis is proposed, were isolated from an oxidation pond in Israel. L. israelensis exhibited the following biochemical reactions typical of legionellae: Growth on buffered cysteine-yeast extract agar but not on chocolate agar or on buffered yeast extract agar without cysteine; nitrate negative; urease negative; nonfermentative; catalase positive; and motile. It did not hydrolyze hippurate, autofluoresce, or produce a brown pigment on tyrosine-containing media, and it had weakly positive gelatinase activity. It had predominantly branched-chain cellular fatty acids, similar to those described for other legionellae, and had major amounts of ubiquinones with more than 10 isoprene units in their side chains. It could be distinguished from all previously described Legionella species and serogroups by using antisera in slide agglutination tests. As determined by the hydroxyapatite method at 60