Validation panel for MALDI-TOF identification of fungi

Abstract Poster session 3, September 23, 2022, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM Sciensano, the Belgian federal scientific institute for public and animal health, houses the BCCM/IHEM Fungi Collection which contains more than 15 000 strains, belonging to over 1 500 different species. The collection is managed according to ISO 9001 standards. Its purpose is to make fungal strains available for academics, clinicians, industry, and education. Fungal pathogens are not as often encountered as bacteria in the clinical laboratory. Additionally, laboratories may not have the knowledge or logistics for the long-term preservation of axenic fungal isolates. Without an array of fungal strains with confirmed identity, it is complicated to implement new protocols and equipment when these need to be validated for the identification of fungi. To short-cut this problem and support laboratories in identifying clinical fungi in routine activities, BCCM/IHEM has developed two validation panels for the identification of fungi via MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry: there is a validation panel with yeasts and a validation panel with filamentous fungi. The selection of strains is based on species that are routinely encountered in a clinical laboratory, and also contains some rarer, but emerging fungal pathogens, like Trichophyton indotineae and Candida auris. The identity and purity of the strains in these panels have been verified according to ISO 17025 accredited protocols. This allows the laboratory to evaluate in a short term the extraction protocol, the MALDI-TOF machine, and the database of reference mass spectra.