Identification of water-conditioned Pseudomonas aeruginosa by Raman microspectroscopy on a single cell level

The identification of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from samples of bottled natural mineral water by the analysis of subcultures is time consuming and other species of the authentic Pseudomonas group can be a problem. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence of different aquatic environmental conditions (pH, mineral content) and growth phases on the cultivation-free differentiation between water-conditioned Pseudomonas spp. by applying Raman microspectroscopy. The final dataset was comprised of over 7500 single-cell Raman spectra, including the species Pseudomonas aeruginosa, P. fluorescens and P. putida, in order to prove the feasibility of the introduced approach. The collection of spectra was standardized by automated measurements of viable stained bacterial cells. The discrimination was influenced by the growth phase at the beginning of the water adaptation period and by the type of mineral water. Different combinations of the parameters were tested and they resulted in accuracies of up to 85% for the identification of P. aeruginosa from independent samples by applying chemometric analysis.