Optical fingerprinting in bacterial epidemiology. Raman spectroscopy as a real-time typing method -- Willemse-Erix et al., 10.1128/JCM.01900-08 -- Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
Here a microbial typing method is presented, based on Raman spectroscopy. This technique will provide strain specific optical fingerprints in a few minutes instead of several hours to days, as is the case with genotyping methods. Although the method is generally applicable, we used 118 Staphylococcus aureus isolates to illustrate that the discriminatory power matches that of established genotyping techniques (D=0.989) and the concordance with the gold standard (PFGE) is high (95%). The Raman clustering of isolates was reproducible to the strain level for 5 independent cultures, despite the varying culture times from 18h to 24h. Furthermore, this technique is able to classify stored (-80°C) and recent isolates of an MRSA colonized individual during surveillance studies and does so days earlier than established genotyping techniques do. Its high throughput and ease-of-use make it suitable for use in routine diagnostic laboratory settings. This will set the stage for continuous, automated, real-time epidemiologic monitoring of bacterial infections in a hospital, which can than be followed by timely corrective action from infection prevention teams.
