Clinical Microbiology: Open Access

Abstract

Identification and Differentiation of Highly Diverse Campylobacter concisus Strains using the MALDI Biotyper

Hans Linde Nielsen, Mette Mølvadgaard, Henrik Nielsen and Markus Kostrzewa

In Danish diarrheic stool samples, the emerging enteric pathogen Campylobacter concisus has an incidence at the level of Campylobacter jejuni. Nevertheless, C. concisus has been neglected in many clinical laboratories due to labour intensive isolation procedures as well as time-consuming PCR-based methods for identification. Fourteen isolates of C. concisus were characterised in the MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer and analysed using the MALDI Biotyper and the ClinProTools 3.0 software. The data show that MALDI-TOF MS, as previously described for other Campylobacter species, can give a rapid identification of C. concisus. Interestingly, the isolates showed a remarkable diversity based upon their mass spectra when compared by visual and computational analysis.