Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases

Microbial Identification by MALDI -TOF MS

Clinical microbiology laboratories require accurate and reliable methods to identify clinically significant microorganisms. Conventional microbiological methods rely on isolating potential pathogens in culture prior to microorganism identification. The same requirement is also true for MALDI-TOF MS, although the method has also been applied directly to select clinical samples.MALDI-TOF MS does not have this requirement. Because only 10⁴–10⁶ CFU are required for testing, direct identification from the primary culture plate is therefore also possible without the need to perform subculture. Furthermore, not all microorganisms can be reliably identified using traditional biochemical-based methods and may require molecular-based methods for identification (e.g. 16S reran sequencing). Molecular methods are generally expensive to perform, require specialized technical expertise and may not be available in all clinical microbiology laboratories