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Pneumonia resulting from exposure to Legionella — although uncommon and affecting only 1 in 100,000 in Europe — has a higher than 10% fatality rate. The pathogenic bacterium Legionella pneumophila has more than 300 toxins that it uses to infect humans. Once the aerosols containing the bacteria are inhaled, Legionella enters the lungs where it starts infecting human cells, causing pneumonia.
Legionella toxins especially target the innate immune pathways facilitating the survival of the bacteria inside human cells and allowing the replication of the bacteria. Due to the large number of toxins it is difficult to see the effects of deleting one or multiple of these toxins on the Legionella infection capacities. This is further complicated by the fact that several toxins with similar functions exist inside the bacteria. This makes Legionella hard to target with specific drugs.
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