PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Bone S F Tang
AU  - Susanna K P Lau
AU  - Jade L L Teng
AU  - Tsz-Ming Chan
AU  - Wai-Sing Chan
AU  - Ting-Yin Wong
AU  - Yu-Ting Tong
AU  - Rachel Y Y Fan
AU  - Kwok-Yung Yuen
AU  - Patrick C Y Woo
TI  - Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation–time of flight mass spectrometry for rapid identification of <em>Laribacter hongkongensis</em>
AID  - 10.1136/jclinpath-2013-201651
DP  - 2013 Dec 01
TA  - Journal of Clinical Pathology
PG  - 1081--1083
VI  - 66
IP  - 12
4099  - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/66/12/1081.short
4100  - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/66/12/1081.full
SO  - J Clin Pathol2013 Dec 01; 66
AB  - Laribacter hongkongensis is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, motile, S-shaped, urease-positive bacillus associated with invasive infections in liver cirrhosis patients and community-acquired gastroenteritis. Most cases of L hongkongensis infections occur in eastern countries. Information is lacking on the usefulness of matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI–TOF MS) for the identification of bacteria important in eastern countries. Using the Bruker database extended with 21 L hongkongensis reference strains, all 240 L hongkongensis isolates recovered from patients, fish, frogs and water were correctly identified, with 224 (93.3%) strains having top match scores ≥2.0. Notably, the strain of Chromobacterium violaceum was not reliably identified although it is included in the database. MALDI–TOF MS is useful for the accurate routine identification of L hongkongensis after adding reference L hongkongensis main spectra to the database. The number of strains for each species in MALDI–TOF MS databases should be expanded to cover intraspecies variability.