Pilot project for rapid Legionella testing

 Which compared the effectiveness and accuracy of conventional ‘culture’ testing for Legionella in water systems, with a new, ‘less labour-intensive’, DNA-based testing system that can produce results ‘in a matter of hours’.

In the 30 years since the ‘light bulb’ moment for Californian geneticist, Kary Mullis, when he worked out the foundations of the polymerase chain reaction technique during a moonlit mountain drive, PCR has led to some of the greatest advances in DNA manipulation. By the late 1990s indeed, PCR was allowing studies in molecular genetics that were not previously possible, while its use in DNA profiling has revolutionised forensic analysis to help solve many a difficult murder case. In microbiology the technique has replaced much of routine testing, especially in virology. Now it is promising to collect a new accolade in the field of environmental microbiology, where it looks set to transform testing for Legionella bacteria in water systems. “A year ago we were still in the thick of validating PCR, and we couldn’t have said how it would work in a non-experimental situation. However, now we have new data that means we can evaluate the technique in a really practical way,” Clare Reynolds, laboratory manager for the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) NHS Trust’s Environmental Microbiology Unit, told the audience at a recent meeting focused on the prevention of waterborne infections in hospital water. “We can give clients an idea of what it would mean for them if they were to use this test.” Clare Reynolds outlined how her unit, based at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, used PCR to confirm that action needed to be taken on a some samples taken from a hospital water system that was generating concern over potential Legionella contamination.

Legionella, PCR, and culture