Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32861860›Full record

ArticleClinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases2021

Performance of lipid fingerprint-based MALDI-ToF for the diagnosis of mycobacterial infections.

Ximena Gonzalo, Agnieszka Broda, Francis Drobniewski, Gerald Larrouy-Maumus

Open access · hybridAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
12citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
2.0field-weighted citation impact, top 12% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Diagnostic performance of MALDI-TOF MS for non-tuberculous mycobacteria: A systematic review and meta-analysis.European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · 2026
    Pooled it
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  4. Evaluation of thermal desorption-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry for characterization ofJournal of mass spectrometry and advances in the clinical lab · 2025
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  7. Automated identification ofJournal of clinical microbiology · 2025
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  9. Review and Updates on the Diagnosis of Tuberculosis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022
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  10. "Omic" Approaches to Bacteria and Antibiotic Resistance Identification.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022
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  11. An Improved Method for Rapid Detection ofFrontiers in chemistry · 2021
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Ximena GonzaloDepartment of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 ONN, UK.
Agnieszka BrodaDepartment of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 ONN, UK.
Francis DrobniewskiDepartment of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 ONN, UK. Electronic address: f.drobniewski@imperial.ac.uk.
Gerald Larrouy-MaumusMRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection, Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK. Electronic address: g.larrouy-maumus@imperial.ac.uk.
Imperial College London · GB

Funding

Medical Research Council MC_PC_17162Medical Research Council MR/P028225/1
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectivesBacterial diagnosis of mycobacteria is often challenging because of the variability of the sensitivity and specificity of the assay used, and it can be expensive to perform accurately. Although matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI MS) has become the workhorse of clinical laboratories, the current MALDI methodology (which is based on cytosolic protein profiling) for mycobacteria is still challenging due to the number of steps involved (up to seven) and potential biosafety concerns. Knowing that mycobacteria produce surface-exposed species-specific lipids, we here hypothesized that the detection of those molecules could offer a rapid, reproducible and robust method for mycobacterial identification.

methodsWe evaluated the performance of an alternative methodology based on characterized species-specific lipid profiling of intact bacteria, without any sample preparation, by MALDI MS; it uses MALDI-time-of-flight (ToF) MS combined with a specific matrix (super-2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid solubilized in an apolar solvent system) to analyse lipids of intact heat-inactivated mycobacteria. Cultured mycobacteria are heat-inactivated and loaded directly onto the MALDI target followed by addition of the matrix. Acquisition of the data is done in both positive and negative ion modes. Blinded studies were performed using 273 mycobacterial strains comprising both the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) complex and non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTMs) subcultured in Middlebrook 7H9 media supplemented with 10% OADC (oleic acid/dextrose/catalase) growth supplement and incubated for up to 2 weeks at 37°C.

resultsThe method we have developed is fast (<10 mins) and highly sensitive (<1000 bacteria required); 96.7% of the Mtb complex strains (204/211) were correctly assigned as MTB complex and 91.7% (22/24) NTM species were correctly assigned based only on intact bacteria species-specific lipid profiling by MALDI-ToF MS.

conclusionsIntact bacterial lipid profiling provides a biosafe and unique route for rapid and accurate mycobacterial identification.

Indexed as

HumansLipidsMycobacteriumMycobacterium InfectionsSensitivity and SpecificitySpecies SpecificitySpectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-IonizationLipidsDiagnosticsEvaluationLipidsMALDIMycobacteria

Identifiers

PMID32861860
PMCPMC8186428
OpenAlexW3080568081

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.