Rodríguez-Temporal, DavidAlcaide, FernandoMarekovic, IvanaO'Connor, James AnthonyGorton, Rebeccavan Ingen, JakkoVan den Bossche, AnHéry‑Arnaud, GenevieveBeauruelle, ClémenceOrth‑Höller, DorotheaPalacios-Gutiérrez, Juan JoséTudó, GriseldaBou, GermánCeyssens, Pieter-JanGarrigó, MontserratGonzález-Martín, JuliáGreub, GilbertHrabak, JaroslavIngebretsen, AndréMediavilla‑Gradolph, María ConcepciónOviaño, MarinaPalop, BegoñaPranada, Arthur B.Quiroga, LidiaRuiz-Serrano, María JesúsRodríguez-Sánchez, Belén2025-02-132025-02-132022-01-24Rodriguez-Temporal D, Alcaide F, Mareković I, O'Connor JA, Gorton R, van Ingen J, Van den Bossche A, Héry-Arnaud G, Beauruelle C, Orth-Höller D, Palacios-Gutiérrez JJ, Tudó G, Bou G, Ceyssens PJ, Garrigó M, González-Martin J, Greub G, Hrabak J, Ingebretsen A, Mediavilla-Gradolph MC, Oviaño M, Palop B, Pranada AB, Quiroga L, Ruiz-Serrano MJ, Rodríguez-Sánchez B. Multicentre study on the reproducibility of MALDI-TOF MS for nontuberculous mycobacteria identification. Sci Rep. 2022 Jan 24;12(1):1237.2045-2322http://hdl.handle.net/2183/41169Multicenter study[Abstract] The ability of MALDI-TOF for the identification of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) has improved recently thanks to updated databases and optimized protein extraction procedures. Few multicentre studies on the reproducibility of MALDI-TOF have been performed so far, none on mycobacteria. The aim of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility of MALDI-TOF for the identification of NTM in 15 laboratories in 9 European countries. A total of 98 NTM clinical isolates were grown on Löwenstein-Jensen. Biomass was collected in tubes with water and ethanol, anonymized and sent out to the 15 participating laboratories. Isolates were identified using MALDI Biotyper (Bruker Daltonics). Up to 1330 MALDI-TOF identifications were collected in the study. A score ≥ 1.6 was obtained for 100% of isolates in 5 laboratories (68.2-98.6% in the other). Species-level identification provided by MALDI-TOF was 100% correct in 8 centres and 100% correct to complex-level in 12 laboratories. In most cases, the misidentifications obtained were associated with closely related species. The variability observed for a few isolates could be due to variations in the protein extraction procedure or to MALDI-TOF system status in each centre. In conclusion, MALDI-TOF showed to be a highly reproducible method and suitable for its implementation for NTM identification.engCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/Nontuberculous mycobacteriajournal articleopen access10.1038/s41598-022-05315-7