Diagnóstico rápido proteómico (MALDI-TOF MS) para la determinación de bacterias resistentes a los antibióticos

Abstract

Mass spectrometry is an analytical technique that allows analytes to be characterized by measuring the mass ratios of the molecules. Evolution of the technology has enabled getting at MALDI-TOF MS, that is variant that allows detection of complex protein mixtures with minimum fragmentations. This leads into its application in microbiology in the identification of microorganisms. Following with the development of new applications of this technology, the basis of this thesis is the detection of molecules as antibiotics for antimicrobial resistance detection. We have based our study on the application of a functional assay that measures the enzymatic activity in the antibiotic and further tracing of the mass spectrum generated. The studied antibiotics were β-lactams, carbapenems and quinolones. We have reached satisfactory results in the application of this technique either in bacterial cultures as in blood cultures. The main advantage of the methodology is the possibility of obtaining results 24 h before than phenotypic methods, with low cost and with sensitivity and specificity values in the range of molecular methods.