Exotoxin activity associated with the Legionnaires disease bacterium

Abstract

Hemolysis occurred around growth of the Legionnaires disease bacterium on supplemented Mueller-Hinton agar containing sterile defibrinated blood from each of five mammalian species. Hemolysis was most pronounced with guinea pig or rabbit blood, was less intense with horse or sheep blood, and was slight with blood from a human donor. Sterile filtrates of allantoic fluid from embryonated hen's eggs that had been infected with this organism displayed hemolytic activity in a radial hemolysis assay with guinea pig cells in agar. Growth of the Legionnaires disease bacterium on F-G agar with 5% hen's egg yolk was surrounded by a zone of clearing and more circumscribed zones of iridescence and increased opacity on and in the medium. Attempts to detect activity analogous to that of Escherichia coli heat-labile or heat-stable enterotoxin in allantoic fluid from infected eggs or in cultures of the Legionnaires disease bacterium were not successful.