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Updated: Jul 12, 2025

Identification of Rare Bacterial Pathogens by 16S rRNA Gene Sequencing and MALDI-TOF MS
Published on: July 11, 2016
A multicenter evaluation of Copan's Colibrí™, an automated instrument for MALDI TOF MS target application for
My Lien Pham1, Kenneth Van Horn1, Ely Zarate2
1Kaiser Permanente, Southern California Permanente Medical Group, Regional Reference Laboratories, Chino Hills, CA, USA.
Abstract:
The Colibrí™ is a new instrument that automates picking and placement of colonies on target plates for MALDI identification. This study compared the performance of the Colibrí™ to standard manual spotting using the VITEK® MS for bacterial identification. Colonies were selected from cultures of urine, wound, respiratory, and positive blood cultures. The Colibrí™ sampled the colonies, transferred them to a MALDI target slide, and overlayed each spot with matrix. Manual spotting was then performed using the same or similar colonies. A total of 444 bacteria were compared. Identification was achieved with both methods for 432 organisms with only 2 discrepant results, overall agreement of 99.54%. Twelve organisms (2.70%) gave no identification using Colibrí™. The Colibrí™ provides automation to a manual process with a high accuracy. Use of the Colibrí™ instrumentation provides an opportunity to reallocate technologist time to more complicated tasks and provides complete traceability from plating to organism identification.
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