Tatlockia and Fluoribacter: Two New Genera of Organisms Resembling Legionella pneumophila

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Abstract
DNA homology studies were performed with strains of Legionella pneumophila Brenner et al., 1979, including the type strain, ATCC 33152, and a group of seven previously unclassified bacteria which resemble L. pneumophila in growth characteristics and colonial morphology and by their content of large amounts of branched-chain fatty acids. The organisms studied include three isolates of the Pittsburgh pneumonia agent (PPA), TATLOCK, WIGA (ALLO1), MI-15 (ALLO2), and NY-23 (ALLO4). The purified DNAs were labeled with 32P in vitro by a nick translation method, which made it possible to achieve very high specific activities. Results of our hybridization experiments suggest that these previously unclassified organisms are not related to L. pneumophila at the genus level, and thus two new genera within the family Legionellaceae are proposed for them: Tatlockia and Fluoribacter. The type species of these genera are T. micdadei (Hebert et al., 1980) comb. nov. and F. bozemanae sp. nov., respectively. The type strain of T. micdadei is strain TATLOCK (= ATCC 33218), and the type strain of F. bozemanae is strain WIGA (= ATCC 33217).