Cultural and Biochemical Characterization of the Legionnaires' Disease Bacterium 



G. Urease 



Inoculate a Christensen's urea agar (S) slant heavily with the suspected isolate. Incubate at 

 35°C in air plus 2.57r CO, for 24 h. The slant should not change color if the isolate is the LDB, 

 since all LDB isolated to date are urease negative by this test. The LDB does not grow on this 

 agar; however, if it were urease positive, the heavy inoculum would contain a sulTicient amount 

 of the enzyme to cause a positive reaction. 



REFERENCES 



1. Buine. W.B., J.K. Rasheed, J.C. Feeley, G.W. Gorman, L.E. Casida, Jr. 1978. Effect of supplemental L-tyrosine 

 on pigment production in culture of the Legionnaires" disease bacterium. Current Microbiology 1 :93-94. 



2. Brown, W.J. 1974. Moditlcation of the rapid fermentation test for Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Appl. Micro. 27: 

 1027-1030. 



3. Clark, W.A. 1976. A simplified Leifson flagella stain. J. Clin. Miciobiol. 3;632-634. 



4. Feeley, J.C, G.W. Gorman, R.E. Weaver. D.C. Mackel, H.W. Sinith. 1978. Primary isolation media for Legion- 

 naires" disease bacterium. J. Clin. Microbiol. 8:320-325. 



5. Martin, J.E., and J.S. Lewis. 1977. Selective culture screening for peniciUinase-producing Neisseria gonor- 

 rhoeae. The Lancet U: 605-606. 



6. Paik, G., and M.T. Suggs. 1974. Reagents, stains, and miscellaneous test procedures. In Manual of Clinical 

 Microbiology. E.H. Lennette, E.H. Spaulding, and J.P. Truant (Eds.). 2nd Ed. 930-950. American Society for 

 Microbiology, Washington, D.C. 



7. Thornsberry, C, and L.A. Kirven. 1978. /3-lactamase of the Legionnaires" bacterium. Curr. Microbiol. L51-54. 



8. Vera, H.D., and M. DumotT. 1974. Culture media.//; Manual of Clinical Microbiology. E.H. Lennette, E.H. 

 Spaulding, and J.P. Truant (Eds.). 2nd Ed. 881-929. American Society for Microbiology, Washington, D.C. 



9. West, Marcia, N.M. Burdash, and Frank Friemuth. U)77. Simplified silver-plating stain for flagella. J. Clin. 

 Microbiol. 6:414-419. 



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