CURIE-POINT PYROLYSIS MASS-SPECTROMETRY AS A TOOL IN CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY

Pyrolysis mass spectrometry is a well established analytical tool that has received a considerable boost from the development of low cost, d edicated instruments and sophisticated statistical analyses on persona l computers. Further analytical developments, especially in the area o f neural networks, are pushing the technology to the forefront of meth ods for the discrimination and identification of microorganisms and th eir products. The speed and reproducibility of pyrolysis mass spectrom etry and its applicability to a wide range of microorganisms make it a n attractive method for epidemiological studies. For inter;strain comp arisons, the method is at least as discriminatory as conventional typi ng systems and usually gives discrimination similar to that of nucleic acid fingerprinting techniques. There has been some success in using neural networks to make identifications across pyrolysis mass spectrom etric batches. Further development of methods used to handle data from multiple PyMS analyses can be expected to extend the value of pyrolys is mass spectrometry in clinical microbiology.