Abstract
This study evaluated the reliability of MALDI-TOF MS coupled with statistical tools for the identification of Streptococcus mutans in comparison with PCR-based techniques. Bacterial isolates were identified and serotyped by conventional PCR, using S. mutans species and serotype-specific primers. For bacterial identification, mass spectra data from S. mutans and other streptococci were compared with Biotyper V 3.1 database and the mass peak lists were examined by cluster and principal component (PCA) analysis. Identification of potential biomarkers was performed using UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot and UniProtKB/TrEMBL databases and BLAST tool of the NCBI database. PCR identified 100% of the isolates as S. mutans. S. mutans strains were typed as serotypes c (85.6%), e (8.6%), k (4.8%), and f (0.9%). Although only the 70% of the strains tested were identified at species level by the Biotyper database, PCA and cluster analysis of mass peaks allowed the identification of 100% S. mutans isolates and its differentiation from the other oral and non-oral streptococci. One mass peak at m/z value of 9572.73 was identified as species-specific biomarker for S. mutans. No biomarkers were identified for S. mutans serotypes.
Key points
• MALDI-TOF MS coupled with statistical tools for the identification of S. mutans.
• Detection of species identifying biomarkers by MALDI-TOF MS.
• PCR identification and serotyping of S. mutans from saliva samples.
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Data availability
The data sets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
Nancy Saltos Rosero thanks the Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (SENESCYT) of Ecuador for the predoctoral scholarship, and Yolanda Torres Corral was partially supported by the Proof of Concept Program “Acelerador de transferencia” from the Banco Santander and Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. The authors are grateful to Dr. Yoshihisa Yamashita from Kyushu University for supplying the reference strains of S. mutans of the serotypes c, f, e, and k.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Nancy Saltos Rosero, Yolanda Torres Corral, Clara Fernández Álvarez, Antonio Aguilera Guirao, Rafael Seoane Prado, and Ysabel Santos Rodríguez. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Nancy Saltos Rosero, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Saltos Rosero, N., Torres Corral, Y., Fernández Álvarez, C. et al. Usefulness of matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization/time of flight mass spectrometry for the identification of Streptococcus mutans. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 104, 10601–10612 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-020-10980-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-020-10980-7