Bacterial identification by LC-ESI-IT-MS/MS

Abstract

The increase of foodborne diseases in the past years, especially emergent pathogens is a great concern for authorities, industry and consumers. It is important the early detection and identification of the microbiota in order to evaluate the safety of the product and avoid health issues and economic losses for either the producer or the distributor. Consequently, there is a critical need to develop rapid and sensitive methods for detection and accurate identification of food-borne pathogens. Our approach is the description of peptide/protein markers unique for a bacterial species, strain or genera. The identification of bacterial peptide/protein markers was performed after digesting the protein in solution and analyzing its tryptic peptides by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS), and subsequent analysis with database search software and comparison with amino acid sequences available in public databases (NCBI). Two peptides were found to be potentially useful for the detection of Staphylococcus aureus