Searching Simkania negevensis in environmental waters.

Simkania negevensis is an obligate intracellular bacterium grouped into the order Chlamydiales. This new amoeba-resistant bacterium represents a novel aetiologic agent of bronchiolitis and community-acquired pneumonia in both adults and children. It has been suggested that Simkania could be an ubiquitous microorganism presented in water environments. In the natural history of infections with amoeba-related bacteria encountered in aquatic habitats, the transmissions by environmental aerosols or contaminated water/air systems have been extensively recognized. Therefore, understanding the feasibility of Simkania infection by these or similar routes is relevant. In the present work, we investigated the prevalence of this novel disease-associated microorganism in water samples from different sources by real-time PCR (qPCR). Our results show Simkania detection in 5 of 185 water analyzed samples (2.7%: 2 of 88 cooling towers and 3 of 8 waste water samples). However, no Simkania was detected in a drinking water.

Prevalence study of Simkania negevensis in cooling towers in Spain.

Simkania negevensis is an obligate intracellular bacterium grouped into the order Chlamydiales. This new amoeba-resistant intracellular bacterium might represent a novel etiologic agent of bronchiolitis and community-acquired pneumonia and occurs in aquatic habitats such as drinking water and reclaimed wastewater. Another amoeba-related bacterium, Legionella pneumophila, is an etiologic agent of pneumonia transmitted by environmental aerosols or contaminated water/air cooling systems. These transmission pathways are important in the natural history of Legionellae infections and possibly other intracellular microorganisms such as Parachlamydiaceae; thus, understanding the feasibility of Simkania infection by these routes is relevant. In the present work, we investigated the prevalence of this newly identified pathogenic bacterium in cooling towers by quantitative PCR (qPCR) and its possible relationship with Legionella pneumophila co-infection. Our results show Simkania detection in 2 of 70 cooling towers analyzed. To our knowledge, this report is the first describing Simkania negevensis detection in this category of environmental water samples.