High Interlaboratory Reproducibility of Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry-Based Species Identification of Nonfermenting Bacteria

Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry has emerged as a rapid, cost-effective alternative for bacterial species identification. Identifying 60 blind-coded nonfermenting bacteria samples, this international study ( using eight laboratories) achieved 98.75% interlaboratory reproducibility. Only 6 of the 480 samples were misidentified due to interchanges ( 4 samples) or contamination ( 1 sample) or not identified because of insufficient signal intensity ( 1 sample).