Effect of gamma radiation on the identification of bacterial pathogens by MALDI-TOF MS

MALDI-TOF MS is a well-established method for rapid identification of bacteria; however there are no reports to date on its performance with gamma-irradiated samples typically used in BSL-3 laboratories for sample inactivation. In this report we demonstrate that gamma-irradiated bacteria can be accurately identified by MALDI-TOF MS in most cases, but a decrease in identification scores is observed. Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.