Stable isotope labeling as a promising tool for rapid drug susceptibility testing in Neisseria gonorrhoeae

• Published in: Brazilian journal of microbiology Vol. 54; no. 3; pp. 1819 - 1825
• Main Authors: Dadwal, Rajneesh, Paul, Saikat, Gupta, Parakriti, Yadav, Rakesh, Sood, Seema, Ghosh, A. K., Shivaprakash, M. R., Gainder, Shalini, Sethi, Sunil
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.09.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Anti-Bacterial Agents - pharmacology; Antibiotics; Azithromycin; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Ciprofloxacin; Ciprofloxacin - pharmacology; Clinical Microbiology - Research Paper; Culture Media, Conditioned; Drug resistance; Food Microbiology; Ionization; Isotope Labeling; Labeling; Life Sciences; Lysine; Mass spectrometry; Mass spectroscopy; Medical Microbiology; Microbial Ecology; Microbial Genetics and Genomics; Microbial Sensitivity Tests; Microbiology; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Mycology; Neisseria gonorrhoeae; Spectra; Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization - methods; Stable isotopes; Sexually transmitted infection; SILAC; MALDI-TOF; Ciprofloxacin; Resistance detection
• ISSN: 1517-8382; 1678-4405
• DOI: 10.1007/s42770-023-00996-2

The world is heading towards an era of intractable and impending untreatable N. gonorrhoeae , thereby underlining the significance of rapid and accurate prediction of drug resistance as an indispensable need of the hour. In the present study, we optimized and evaluated a stable isotope labeling-based approach using the MALDI-TOF MS (Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry) for rapid and reliable detection of ciprofloxacin and azithromycin resistance in N. gonorrhoeae . All the isolates were cultured under three varied condition setups viz. medium supplemented with normal lysine, heavy lysine (isotope), and heavy lysine along with the antibiotics (ciprofloxacin/azithromycin), respectively. After incubation, spectra were acquired using the MALDI-TOF MS which were further screened for unique patterns (media-specific spectra) to differentiate drug-susceptible and resistant isolates. The results of the stable isotope labeling assay were comparable to the results of phenotypic methods used for susceptibility testing.