Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy is a rapid and cost-effective technique that analyzes the biochemical composition of bacterial cells to assess phenotypic relatedness between strains. In the webinar the performance of FT-IR spectroscopy for clonality assessment of Serratia marcescens will be presented by comparing its clustering output to that of whole-genome sequencing (WGS), using core genome single nucleotide polymorphism (cgSNP) analysis as reference. FT-IR spectroscopy showed good overall concordance with WGS and a standardized workflow for assessing clonality of putative S. marcescens outbreaks was developed. This workflow yielded clustering results that matched WGS-based analyses and allowed clonality assessments within 24 hours after isolate recovery. These results demonstrate that FT-IR spectroscopy can serve as a first-line screening tool to rapidly identify clonal clusters of S. marcescens, reducing turnaround time and limiting the number of isolates requiring confirmatory WGS, thereby considerably lowering overall outbreak investigation costs.
Key Learning Objectives
- Principles of FT-IR technology.
- How a standardized IR Biotyper workflow can be used to reveal high concordance with whole genome sequencing (WGS) and to assess clonality.
- How FT-IR technology can be used as a fast and cost effective first line screening tool to finally reduce the number of isolates requiring WGS and thereby reducing costs.
- How latest statistiscal tools of the IR Biotyper software can be used to benefit from faster and cost-effective outbreak detection.
