Methods for the rapid identification of microorganisms

The microbiology of alcoholic beverages

“…Consequently, verification of strain purity and authenticity using DNA and other molecular methods is becoming an important part of brewery quality assurance programmes (Johnston, 1990;Schofield et al, 1995;Gutteridge & Priest, 1996;Wightman et al, 1996).…”

Discrimination and Identification of Microorganisms by Pyrolysis Mass Spectrometry: From Burning Ambitions to Cooling Embers—A Historical Perspective

“…Among the advantages of the method are that samples are prepared and analyzed in batches, the technique is applicable to a wide variety of microorganisms, and analysis cost per specimen is moderate. 3 However, disadvantages include the possible loss of valuable information as the technique analyzes only a small part of the total bacterium, increased instrument analysis time per specimen, which can take up to 30 minutes, poor long-term reproducibility, which makes the use of a reference library difficult, and no information on whether FAME profiles vary sufficiently to allow typing down to strain level.…”

“…The walls of many different bacteria have now been analyzed, and various rapid methods, such as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), and thin-layer chromatography (TLC), have been developed to detect particular components. 3 So far, however, only GC has been commercially developed into a microbial identification system. Originally introduced by Hewlett Packard and now marketed as the MIDI system (Newark, Delaware, US), the basis of the technique is the extraction of wholecell fatty acids and GC profiling of their methyl esters (FAME profiles).…”

“…Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) of whole-organism proteins, originally proposed by Jackman 7 , is a powerful, relatively low cost technique. 3 It involves growth of the microorganism in standardised conditions followed by harvesting and cell disruption to release the proteins. After electrophoresis, gels are stained to reveal the characteristic protein-band patterns that can be rapidly analyzed with automatic scanning densitometry and direct computer processing of the data.…”