MALDI TOF

MALDI, matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization) in combination with a time-of-flight (TOF) detector. This is an application of the spectrophotometric method for microbiological laboratories. Thanks to the method, it is possible to reduce the time from taking a sample to determining the pathogen to just 24 hours. The method is mainly used for bacterial cultures, when after inoculation of the sample on the soil, after the formation of a clean colony, we dissolve this colony in a solution and, after inserting it into the device, a value is displayed that is compared with the current database of pathogens. In principle, it is a spectrophotometric determination of the composition of a bacterium (protein profile), which is so unique that it is often possible to determine not only the genus of the bacterium, but even the species. The method is accurate, faster than classical methods and cheap, as there is no need to inoculate microbes on a large amount of soil. Today, it is beginning to be routinely used in larger microbiological laboratories, for example in Prague's Bulovka, or in the Brno University Hospital.