Rapid, reagent-free technology for identification of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant entercococci (VRE) in clinical microbiology labs

由耐药性细菌引起的感染是全世界医院的主要问题。葡萄球菌和肠球菌是医院获得性感染的主要原因，包括所有血液感染的一半。加拿大流行率研究估计，大约4%的住院患者将感染或定植MRSA（耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌），2007年至2013年期间，加拿大医院中万古霉素耐药肠球菌（VRE）引起的感染的流行率增加了两倍。联邦政府在2015年提出的抗菌素耐药性行动计划中的建议之一是研究和开发更快、更准确的诊断工具，可以为医生提供准确诊断感染所需的信息，从而促进抗菌素的有效使用。该NSERC-I2 I第一阶段提案旨在通过开发一种新的快速且具有成本效益的技术来实现这些目标，该技术用于通过衰减全反射-傅里叶变换红外（ATR-FTIR）光谱法基于“全生物体指纹”识别MRSA和VRE。新技术的优点包括：（i）最少的样品制备，（ii）无试剂分析，（iii）简单（一步）方案，（iv）快速周转时间（1-2分钟），和（v）每次测试的低成本。据我们所知，目前市场上还没有其他技术可以在不使用任何试剂的情况下，在一个步骤中完成对抗生素抗性和抗生素敏感细菌的区分。

Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a major concern in hospitals worldwide. Staphylococcal and enterococcal bacteria are major causes of hospital-acquired infections, including half of all bloodstream infections. Canadian prevalence studies have estimated that approximately 4% of hospitalized patients will become infected or colonized with MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), and the prevalence of infections caused by vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in Canadian hospitals tripled between 2007 and 2013. One of the recommendations in the action plan on antimicrobial resistance put forward by the Federal government in 2015 is research and development of faster and more accurate diagnostic tools that can provide doctors the information they need to accurately diagnose an infection, thereby promoting effective use of antimicrobials. This NSERC-I2I Phase I proposal aims at achieving these goals by developing a new rapid and cost-effective technology for the identification of MRSA and VRE based on "whole-organism fingerprinting" by attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. The advantages of the new technology include: (i) minimal sample preparation, (ii) reagent-free analysis, (iii) simple (one-step) protocol, (iv) fast turnaround time (1-2 min), and (v) low cost per test. To our knowledge, there is no other technology currently on the market that accomplishes the discrimination between antibiotic-resistant and antibiotic-susceptible bacteria in a single step without the use of any reagents.