The application of rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry in the analysis of Drosophila species—a potential new tool in entomology

Abstract

There is increasing emphasis on the use of new analytical approaches in subject analysis and classification, particularly in respect to minimal sample preparation. Here, we demonstrate that rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry (REIMS), a method that captures metabolite mass spectra after rapid combustive degradation of an intact biological specimen, generates informative mass spectra from several arthropods, and more specifically, is capable of discerning differences between species and sex of several adult Drosophila species. A model including five Drosophila species, built using pattern recognition, achieves high correct classification rates (over 90%) using test datasets and is able to resolve closely related species. The ease of discrimination of male and female specimens also demonstrates that sex-specific differences reside in the REIMS metabolite patterns, whether analysed across all five species or specifically for D. melanogaster. Further, the same approach can correctly discriminate and assign Drosophila species at the larval stage, where these are morphologically highly similar or identical. REIMS offers a novel approach to insect typing and analysis, requiring a few seconds of data acquisition per sample and has considerable potential as a new tool for the field biologist.

Rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry (REIMS): A potential and rapid tool for the identification of insecticide resistance in mosquito larvae

“…However there has been no studies which investigate the use of NIRS to directly measure insecticide resistance. The accuracy of NIRS for mosquito species determination is reported to be 78 – 90% (Ferguson et al 2009, Sikulu et al 2010, 2011, González Jiménez et al 2019), lower than the 91 – 100% REIMS accuracy for species differentiation in Drosophila (Wagner et al 2020). As NIRS has not been used to directly monitor insecticide resistance, comparisons between REIMS and NIRS accuracy for this purpose cannot be made.…”

“…We also compared two different classification model types, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and random forest (RF) both of which are commonly applied to classification of samples using REIMS data (Cameron et al 2016, St John et al 2017, Davidson et al 2019, Gredell et al 2019, Wagner et al 2020, Sarsby et al 2021). LDA is often the classification method of choice for spectrometry-based phenotyping, including REIMS (Bonetti 2018, D’Hue et al 2018, Gredell et al 2019, Kenar et al 2019, Liu et al 2021, Wang et al 2021).…”

“…Rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry analysis was conducted following the detailed methods outlined by Wagner et al . (2020).…”

“…The potential applications of REIMS are vast with its previous successful applications including distinguishing cancerous tissue from healthy tissue (Alexander et al 2017, St John et al 2017, Phelps et al 2018), authentication of food products (Balog et al 2016, Black et al 2017, Verplanken et al 2017, Guitton et al 2018, Rigano et al 2019), microbial species identification (Strittmatter et al 2013, 2014), monitoring of bacterial growth and recombinant protein expression (Sarsby et al 2021), and the identification of rodent species and sex from faecal matter (Davidson et al 2019). REIMS has also been shown to be a highly effective method for species and sex determination in Drosophila adults and larvae (Wagner et al 2020).…”

Rapid Evaporative Ionization Mass Spectrometry: A Review on Its Application to the Red Meat Industry with an Australian Context

“…DART-MS was used to assess salmon freshness by monitoring muscle lipid abundances over time, and sample homogenisation, extraction and clean up was required prior to the analysis [49]. In contrast (and as noted), REIMS has been demonstrated to be applicable to numerous applications where samples are analysed directly [16,24,50,51] giving it a clear advantage in this regard. The remainder of the review will provide further detail of these applications in the areas of provenance, quality and safety to the red meat industry, with an emphasis on an Australian context.…”