Classification and Identification of Bacteria by Mass Spectrometry and Computational Analysis

By Sascha Sauer, Anja Freiwald, T. Maier, M. Kube, R. Reinhardt, M. Kostrzewa, K. Geider. PLoS ONE, 2008

320 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background In general, the definite determination of bacterial species is a tedious process and requires extensive manual labour. Novel technologies for bacterial detection and analysis can therefore help microbiologists in minimising their efforts in developing a number of microbiological applications. Methodology We present a robust, standardized procedure for automated bacterial analysis that is based on the detection of patterns of protein masses by MALDI mass spectrometry. We particularly applied the approach for classifying and identifying strains in species of the genus Erwinia. Many species of this genus are associated with disastrous plant diseases such as fire blight. Using our experimental procedure, we created a general bacterial mass spectra database that currently contains 2800 entries of bacteria of different genera. This database will be steadily expanded. To support users with a feasible analytical method, we developed and tested comprehensive software tools that are demonstrated herein. Furthermore, to gain additional analytical accuracy and reliability in the analysis we used genotyping of single nucleotide polymorphisms by mass spectrometry to unambiguously determine closely related strains that are difficult to distinguish by only relying on protein mass pattern detection. Conclusions With the method for bacterial analysis, we could identify fire blight pathogens from a variety of biological sources. The method can be used for a number of additional bacterial genera. Moreover, the mass spectrometry approach presented allows the integration of data from different biological levels such as the genome and the proteome.

Subfields: Clinical Biochemistry, Epidemiology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e14fed725467473af0e74f8b902df89110281f52

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Clinical Biochemistry

1. Sascha Sauer
2. Magdalena Kliem

In Epidemiology

1. J. Clarridge

Citations in the corpus

• Ongoing revolution in bacteriology: routine identification of bacteria by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. (2009, background): “coli [15, 16], Yersinia enterocolitica [16], and Erwinia species [17]; nonfermenting bacteria [18], such as Burkholderia cepacia complex [19]; Haemophilus species [20]; various grampositive cocci [21], including Staphylococcus species [7], viridans Streptococcus species [22], Listeria species [23], ”
• Mass spectrometry tools for the classification and identification of bacteria (2010, background): “Bacterial mass spectra can be stored as reference libraries, and pattern matching or other suitable algorithms can be applied to compare mass spectral fingerprints for identification of isolate”