Summary Legionnaires' disease is an important cause of community-acquired and hospital-acquired pneumonia. Although uncommon, Legionnaires' disease continues to cause disease outbreaks of public ...health significance. The disease is caused by any species of the Gram-negative aerobic bacteria belonging to the genus Legionella ; Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 is the causative agent of most cases in Europe. In this Review we outline the global epidemiology of Legionnaires' disease, summarise its diagnosis and management, and identify research gaps and priorities. Early clinical diagnosis and prompt initiation of appropriate antibiotics for Legionella spp in all patients with community-acquired or hospital-acquired pneumonias is a crucial measure for management of the disease. Progress in typing and sequencing technologies might additionally contribute to understanding the distribution and natural history of Legionnaires' disease, and inform outbreak investigations. Control of Legionnaires' disease outbreaks relies on rapid ascertainment of descriptive epidemiological data, combined with microbiological information to identify the source and implement control measures. Further research is required to define the actual burden of disease, factors that influence susceptibility, key sources of infection, and differences in virulence between strains of Legionella species. Other requirements are improved, specific, sensitive, and rapid diagnostic tests to accurately inform management of Legionnaires' disease, and controlled clinical trials to ascertain the optimum antibiotics for treatment.
A molecular understanding of porcine reproduction is of biological interest and economic importance. Our Midwest Consortium has produced cDNA libraries containing the majority of genes expressed in ...major female reproductive tissues, and we have deposited into public databases 21,499 expressed sequence tag (EST) gene sequences from the 3' end of clones from these libraries. These sequences represent 10,574 different genes, based on sequence comparison among these data, and comparison with existing porcine ESTs and genes indicate as many as 4652 of these EST clusters are novel. In silico analysis identified sequences that are expressed in specific pig tissues or organs and confirmed the broad expression in pig for many genes ubiquitously expressed in human tissues. Furthermore, we have developed computer software to identify sequence similarity of these pig genes with their human counterparts, and to extract the mapping information of these human homologues from genome databases. We demonstrate the utility of this software for comparative mapping by localizing 61 genes on the porcine physical map for Chromosomes (Chrs) 5, 10, and 14.
