Chapter 12: Identification of Microorganisms by Mass Spectrometry in Clinical Microbiology Laboratories

MALDI-TOF MS is a rapid microbial diagnosis method developed based on MS technology, which has been widely used in clinical microbiology laboratories around the world, due to its accurate and efficient performance in microbial identification. This chapter introduces the specific applications of MALDI-TOF MS in clinical laboratories, including strain identification, antibiotic resistance mechanism tests, bacterial strain typing, and virulence marker detection. Besides, the current situation and development trends of this technique are analyzed and its application prospects are discussed.