TY - JOUR A2 - Bach, Horacio AU - Loiseau, Clémence AU - Portier, Emilie AU - Corre, Marie-Hélène AU - Schlusselhuber, Margot AU - Depayras, Ségolène AU - Berjeaud, Jean-Marc AU - Verdon, Julien PY - 2018 DA - 2018/10/22 TI - Highlighting the Potency of Biosurfactants Produced by Pseudomonas Strains as Anti-Legionella Agents SP - 8194368 VL - 2018 AB - Legionella pneumophila, the causative agent of Legionnaires’ disease, is a waterborne bacterium mainly found in man-made water systems in close association with free-living amoebae and multispecies biofilms. Pseudomonas strains, originating from various environments including freshwater systems or isolated from hospitalized patients, were tested for their antagonistic activity towards L. pneumophila. A high amount of tested strains was thus found to be active. This antibacterial activity was correlated to the presence of tensioactive agents in culture supernatants. As Pseudomonas strains were known to produce biosurfactants, these compounds were specifically extracted and purified from active strains and further characterized using reverse-phase HPLC and mass spectrometry methods. Finally, all biosurfactants tested (lipopeptides and rhamnolipids) were found active and this activity was shown to be higher towards Legionella strains compared to various other bacteria. Therefore, described biosurfactants are potent anti-Legionella agents that could be used in the water treatment industry although tests are needed to evaluate how effective they would be under field conditions. SN - 2314-6133 UR - https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/8194368 DO - 10.1155/2018/8194368 JF - BioMed Research International PB - Hindawi KW - ER -