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Updated: Mar 11, 2026

Identification of Rare Bacterial Pathogens by 16S rRNA Gene Sequencing and MALDI-TOF MS
Published on: July 11, 2016
MALDI-TOF MS meets WGS in a VRE outbreak investigation
S Schlebusch1,2, G R Price3, R L Gallagher3
1Pathology Department, Mater Health Services, South Brisbane, QLD, Australia. sanmarie.schlebusch@mater.org.au.
Abstract:
The use of MALDI-TOF MS (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry) and WGS (whole genome sequencing) has been described for identification and strain relatedness determination. We describe the complementary use of MALDI-TOF MS and WGS in a VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci) outbreak investigation, and discuss some of the challenges with defining strain similarity across these two platforms. Although both assays indicated multiple clusters involved in the outbreak of vancomycin resistant Enterococcus faecium isolates from positive blood cultures of four haematology-oncology patients, the small cohort and discrepancies between findings indicate the limitations of MALDI-TOF MS and the cautious interpretation of MALDI-TOF MS dendrograms during outbreaks. For definitive determination of the evolutionary distance between isolates, WGS can be used.
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