Geographical and temporal structures of Legionella pneumophila sequence types in comunitat valenciana (Spain), 1998 to 2013

ABSTRACT Legionella pneumophila is an accidental human pathogen associated with aerosol formation in water-related sources. High recombination rates make Legionella populations genetically diverse, and nearly 2,000 different sequence types (STs) have been described to date for this environmental pathogen. The spatial distribution of STs is extremely heterogeneous, with some variants being present worldwide and others being detected at only a local scale. Similarly, some STs have been associated with disease outbreaks, such as ST578 or ST23. Spain is among the European countries with the highest incidences of reported legionellosis cases, and specifically, Comunitat Valenciana (CV) is the se…