The Journal of Medical Microbiology, Vol 40, Issue 3 170-173, Copyright © 1994 by Society for General Microbiology

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Rapid identification of species within the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex by artificial neural network analysis of pyrolysis mass spectra

R. Freeman, R. Goodacre, P. R. Sisson, J. G. Magee, A. C. Ward and N. F. Lightfoot
Department of Microbiology, The Medical School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

An artificial neural network (ANN) was trained to distinguish between Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. bovis with averaged pyrolysis mass spectra from duplicate subcultures of four strains of each of these species, each pyrolysed in triplicate. Once trained, the ANN was interrogated with spectrum data from the original organisms (the "training set") and from 26 other mycobacterial isolates (the "challenge set") of the M. tuberculosis complex (MTBC). Eight strains of M. bovis and 13 of M. tuberculosis, whether sensitive or variously resistant to antituberculosis drugs, were identified in agreement with conventional identification. Four strains of "M. africanum" were identified as M. bovis. Of two atypical M. tuberculosis strains from South India, one was identified as M. tuberculosis and the other as M. bovis. Six strains of BCG proved heterogeneous; two gave equivocal identifications, three were identified as M. bovis and one was identified as M. tuberculosis.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				A. Pozhitkov, B. Chernov, G. Yershov, and P. A. Noble Evaluation of Gel-Pad Oligonucleotide Microarray Technology by Using Artificial Neural Networks Appl. Envir. Microbiol., December 1, 2005; 71(12): 8663 - 8676. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				H. Urakawa, S. El Fantroussi, H. Smidt, J. C. Smoot, E. H. Tribou, J. J. Kelly, P. A. Noble, and D. A. Stahl Optimization of Single-Base-Pair Mismatch Discrimination in Oligonucleotide Microarrays Appl. Envir. Microbiol., May 1, 2003; 69(5): 2848 - 2856. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				H. Urakawa, P. A. Noble, S. El Fantroussi, J. J. Kelly, and D. A. Stahl Single-Base-Pair Discrimination of Terminal Mismatches by Using Oligonucleotide Microarrays and Neural Network Analyses Appl. Envir. Microbiol., January 1, 2002; 68(1): 235 - 244. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				G. Moschetti, G. Blaiotta, F. Villani, S. Coppola, and E. Parente Comparison of Statistical Methods for Identification of Streptococcus thermophilus, Enterococcus faecalis, and Enterococcus faecium from Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA Patterns Appl. Envir. Microbiol., May 1, 2001; 67(5): 2156 - 2166. [Abstract] [Full Text]

				P. A. Noble, J. S. Almeida, and C. R. Lovell Application of Neural Computing Methods for Interpreting Phospholipid Fatty Acid Profiles of Natural Microbial Communities Appl. Envir. Microbiol., February 1, 2000; 66(2): 694 - 699. [Abstract] [Full Text]