Rapid Identification of Legionella pneumophila, Legionella anisa, and Legionella taurinensis with Latex Agglutination Reagents

The research latex product was done to identify Legionella pneumophila, Legionella anisa, and Legionella taurinensis. The comparison with two commercialized latex reagents was made using 190 Legionella wild-type strains (96 L. pneumophila, 63 L. anisa, 31 L. taurinensis); they corresponded to the French clinical and environmental distribution of the isolates. The three latex kits tested efficiently identified all the L. pneumophila isolates within 15 min. Only the research latex product is able to identify L. anisa and L. taurinensis. The research latex product is a rapid and easy tool to identify the majority of the clinical and environmental Legionella isolates. Latex agglutination is a rapid technique to identify Legionella isolates. Therefore, the authors developed latex reagents which allow the identification of the majority of the clinical and environmental Legionella in 15 min. The research latex product is a reliable and rapid tool to identify the most frequent Legionella in clinical and water samples.