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Updated: Sep 29, 2026

Evaluation of Microbial Safety of Dairies using Bacterial Proteomic Profiling via MALDI Approach
Published on: October 7, 2025
Rapid microorganism identification with on-slide proteolytic digestion followed by matrix-assisted laser
Zhong-Ping Yao1, Carlos Afonso, Catherine Fenselau
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA. yao@wam.umd.edu
Abstract:
A simple method for microorganism identification is proposed in this paper. In this method, no isolation or fractionation of microorganisms and no special search algorithm or database are needed. Experimentally, a sample of the unfractionated intact microorganism is subjected to brief on-slide proteolytic digestion and the digestion product ions detected in matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) are selected for tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Database searching using the MS/MS spectrum identifies the microorganism protein, and thereby, according to the source of the protein, the microorganism. The method was demonstrated to be feasible with enterobacteriophage MS2 as the model microorganism. The novel method is simple, rapid, and requires a small quantity of sample.
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