MALDI-TOF-MS Characterization of Environmental Bacterial Isolates

Abstract

Various traditional and modern microbiological methods are available for the analysis and characterization of pure bacterial cultures. However, for some of them sample preparation can be very time-consuming. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) has the advantage of short measuring time, fast sample preparation and negligible sample consumption. With the utilization of MALDI-TOF MS biomolecules, such as proteins, peptides, oligosaccharides and oligonucleotides in the range of 400 and up to 350,000 Da, can be analysed within a few seconds. Recently, determination of the bacterial samples as intact (whole) cells and also bacterial extracts has been developed. Ten bacterial environmental isolates were characterized using 16SrRNA and subsequently MALDI-TOF-MS, with the use of the Maldi Biotyper database.