Exotoxin activity associated with the Legionnaires disease bacterium

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Abstract
Hemolysis occurred around growth of the Legionnaires disease bacterium on supplemented Mueller-Hinton agar containing sterile defibrinated blood from each of 5 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 were 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.