At the 23rd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), Bruker shows new capabilities of the MALDI Biotyper™ platform.

The MALDI Biotyper (MBT) is the market-leading system for microbial identification based on MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. It is widely used in clinical microbiology, industrial microbiology, animal health and food safety and has become the broadly accepted laboratory standard for next generation microbial identification. While conventional biochemical testing takes time-consuming incubation after selection of the microbes from the culture plate, the MALDI Biotyper allows for an instantaneous identification of colonies from a plate. The MALDI Biotyper system covers a broad range of more than 4,600 microbial isolates from gram-negative bacteria, gram-positive bacteria, yeasts, multicellular fungi and mycobacteria. It is broadly applicable as a standard identification tool in various fields of microbiology. Microbial identification with the MALDI Biotyper is done using a proteomic fingerprint. This unique species-specific pattern is automatically compared with reference spectra in the MALDI Biotyper library. In addition, the MALDI Biotyper supports the Open Microbiology Concept which allows customers to generate their own database entries from regional isolates via a push-button storage in a customer-specific sub-library.

On show at ECCMID are:

• The new second edition of the MBT Mycobacteria Library adds another 140 isolates from 37 new species. The library is fully compatible with all standard cultivation media for mycobacteria, such as solid Löwenstein-Jensen medium or in liquid culture using the MGIT™ system from Becton Dickinson. With these added capabilities the MALDI Biotyper covers now more than 130 species of mycobacteria.
• The new MALDI Biotyper Pilot™ accessory complements the satellite software to a complete, barcoded and paperless workflow. The MBT Pilot is used for light-guided manual target preparation using cross hairs to indicate the next position for preparation on the MALDI target. Barcoding of the MALDI target and the sample, along with multiple isolate support, ensure that the complete process is fully traceable.
• The new MALDI Biotyper Galaxy™ performs a quality-controlled automated deposition of the MALDI matrix onto the target plate. After the preparation it scans the target positions and checks if each spot is optimally prepared for MALDI Biotyper measurements. The MBT Galaxy has a seamless integration into the MBT server coupled with on-board barcode reading and automated loading of the associated project work list. Both MBT Pilot and MBT Galaxy are scheduled to be commercially available in 2013.
• The revolutionary MALDI-Biotyper-Spectrum-Beta-Lactamase™ workflow (MSBL™) enables users to perform patented functional beta-lactam antibiotic resistance testing for selected antibiotics on the MALDI Biotyper platform. The cleavage of beta-lactam antibiotics, like penicillins, 3rd generation cephalosporins or carbapenems by resistant bacteria leads to specific mass shifts of the cleaved products. Such mass shifts can be observed and monitored using the MALDI Biotyper, and automatically interpreted with the MSBL software module, which is also expected to be commercially availability later this year.