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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Bacterial identification using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry in positive blood cultures: A pilot study
Smriti Srivastava1† ,
Akshay Shankar2† ,
Neha Sharad1 ,
Aparna Ningombam2 ,
Kamran Farooque3 ,
Purva Mathur2*
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1
Department of Microbiology, Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029,
India
2
Department of Lab Medicine, Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029,
India
3
Department of Orthopedics, Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029,
India
JBM, e99010058 https://doi.org/10.14440/jbm.2025.0119
Submitted: 20 November 2024 | Revised: 25 December 2024 | Accepted: 14 February 2025 | Published: 12 March 2025
© 2025 by the Journal of Biological Methods published by POL Scientific. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract
Background: Early pathogen identification in the bloodstream has long been a key focus for microbiologists and clinicians, given its crucial role in patient management. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry has emerged as a valuable tool for the direct and rapid identification of organisms from positive blood cultures. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy, productivity, and feasibility of two methods for the rapid detection of bloodstream infections. Methods: Two methods were employed in this study: One based on differential centrifugation and the other using a lysis buffer. Results: The addition of a lysis buffer, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), to the blood culture broth resulted in the identification of a greater number of microorganisms (Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Klebsiella pneumonia). Conclusion: The application of SDS into culture broths is user-friendly and can be easily integrated into routine blood culture processing, allowing for species-level identification within hours of a positive BacT/ALERT signal.
Keywords
MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry
Blood culture
Bloodstream infection
Rapid diagnosis
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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