Legionella maioricensis
| Legionella maioricensis | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Bacteria |
| Kingdom: | Pseudomonadati |
| Phylum: | Pseudomonadota |
| Class: | Gammaproteobacteria |
| Order: | Legionellales |
| Family: | Legionellaceae |
| Genus: | Legionella |
| Species: | L. maioricensis
|
| Binomial name | |
| Legionella maioricensis Crespi et al. 2023
| |
Legionella maioricensis is a rod-shaped (typical for Legionella) bacterium belonging to the genus Legionella. It has a thin cell wall, is motile — can move using flagella and It needs L-cysteine for growth — a hallmark of Legionella species.
It was first isolated from the hot water distribution systems of a hospital and a shopping center during routine sampling. Researchers isolated two Legionella-like strains (HCPI-6T and EUR-108). They have been characterized phenotypically, biochemically and genomically in terms of DNA relatedness. Both strains exhibited biochemical phenotypic profiles typical of Legionella species.
Use of comparative genome sequence-based analyses (ANI - Average Nucleotide Identity and dDDH digital DNA–DNA Hybridization) which are genomic comparison tools and measure how similar the DNA of one organism is to another, demonstrated that the strains represent a new species of the genus Legionella. The strains are sufficiently different from all previously known Legionella species and represent the novel species, Legionella maioricensis.