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US Navy 070905-N-0194K-029 Lt. Paul Graf, a microbiology officer aboard Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20), examines wound cultures in the ship's microbiology laboratory.jpg

Title: What types of testing occur within a medical microbiology laboratory?

Author for citation: Shawn E. Douglas

License for content: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Publication date: April 2024

Introduction

The medical microbiology laboratory has a variety of testing and workflow requirements that manage to separate it from other biomedical labs.

This brief topical article will examine the typical types of testing that occur in medical microbiology labs.


General information

A medical microbiology laboratory helps detect, identify, and characterize microorganisms for both patient treatment and disease prevention and control. Local clinical microbiology laboratories are responsible for reporting the identification of certain infectious agents to various public health agencies (city, county, and state). These reports are used by public agencies to track incidences and attempt to identify outbreaks.[1]

Figure 1 and Figure 2: https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cmr.00057-19

While automation has been steadily spreading throughout the clinical chemistry and clinical hematology laboratories, until recently most processes for culture-based testing in the clinical microbiology laboratory have been performed manually (3, 4). The introduction of automation in microbiology was considered difficult to apply for several reasons such as the complexity and variability of sample types, the variations of specimens processing, the doubtful cost-effectiveness especially for small and average-sized laboratories, and the perception that machines could not exercise the critical decision-making skills required to process microbiological samples (2, 5, 6).[2]

Traditionally clinical microbiology does not operate using a 24-h schedule for culture reading and interpretation. If laboratories are operating 24 h, generally only culture plating and Gram stains are performed during the overnight hours. Automation of the front-end plating systems allows for nonspecialists to load samples onto the automation system for plating to provide 24-hour plating of specimens in the laboratory[2]

Testing

  • Taxonomic identification: (Phenotypic or biochemical identification) Databases are commonly used for the identification of microorganisms. Common databases include biochemical reaction databases, matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization–time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrum databases, and nucleic acid sequence databases, and less frequently, high-performance liquid chromatography databases are used for the identification of mycobacteria.[1]
  • Antibiograms and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST): An antibiogram is a cumulative summary or "overall profile of [in vitro] susceptibility testing results for a specific microorganism to an array of antimicrobial drugs," often given in a tabular form.[3] There are multiple approaches to antibiograms for a wide variety of susceptibility testing, common to microbiology labs.[4] The nuances of susceptibility testing and antibiograms drive reporting requirements, particularly to the standard CLSI M39 Analysis and Presentation of Cumulative Antimicrobial Susceptibility Test Data.[1][5]
  • Detection of microbial growth:
  • Nucleic acid testing or antigen testing: While the majority of microbial methods performed in microbiology laboratories are phenotypic (biochemical or proteomic based), genotypic methods can prove useful for assessing sterility test and media fill failures, and for tracking the route of contamination as part of a contamination control strategy.[6] PCR assays designed to detect single pathogens to high-throughput parallel sequencing of DNA designed to detect multiple species simultaneously[1]
  • Digital image analysis: screening slides for acid-fast bacilli (74), interpretation of colony Gram stains (75), or simple bacterial culture interpretations (e.g., colony counts)[1] automated microscope designed to collect high‑resolution image data from microscopic slides.[6] Re: Colony counts - Such high‑resolution image analysis systems can detect small and mixed colonies, which a human eye cannot.[6]

Conclusion

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Rhoads, Daniel D.; Sintchenko, Vitali; Rauch, Carol A.; Pantanowitz, Liron (1 October 2014). "Clinical Microbiology Informatics" (in en). Clinical Microbiology Reviews 27 (4): 1025–1047. doi:10.1128/CMR.00049-14. ISSN 0893-8512. PMC PMC4187636. PMID 25278581. https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/CMR.00049-14. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 Antonios, Kritikos; Croxatto, Antony; Culbreath, Karissa (30 December 2021). "Current State of Laboratory Automation in Clinical Microbiology Laboratory" (in en). Clinical Chemistry 68 (1): 99–114. doi:10.1093/clinchem/hvab242. ISSN 0009-9147. https://academic.oup.com/clinchem/article/68/1/99/6490228. 
  3. Antimicrobial Resistance and Stewardship Initiative, University of Minnesota (February 2020). "How to Use a Clinical Antibiogram" (PDF). https://arsi.umn.edu/sites/arsi.umn.edu/files/2020-02/How_to_Use_a_Clinical_Antibiogram_26Feb2020_Final.pdf. Retrieved 17 April 2024. 
  4. Gajic, Ina; Kabic, Jovana; Kekic, Dusan; Jovicevic, Milos; Milenkovic, Marina; Mitic Culafic, Dragana; Trudic, Anika; Ranin, Lazar et al. (23 March 2022). "Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing: A Comprehensive Review of Currently Used Methods" (in en). Antibiotics 11 (4): 427. doi:10.3390/antibiotics11040427. ISSN 2079-6382. PMC PMC9024665. PMID 35453179. https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6382/11/4/427. 
  5. Simner, Patricia J.; Hindler, Janet A.; Bhowmick, Tanaya; Das, Sanchita; Johnson, J. Kristie; Lubers, Brian V.; Redell, Mark A.; Stelling, John et al. (19 October 2022). Humphries, Romney M.. ed. "What’s New in Antibiograms? Updating CLSI M39 Guidance with Current Trends" (in en). Journal of Clinical Microbiology 60 (10): e02210–21. doi:10.1128/jcm.02210-21. ISSN 0095-1137. PMC PMC9580356. PMID 35916520. https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jcm.02210-21. 
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 Sandle, T. (22 December 2021). "Enhancing rapid microbiology methods: how AI is shaping microbiology". European Pharmaceutical Review. https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalreview.com/article/166302/enhancing-rapid-microbiology-methods-how-ai-is-shaping-microbiology/. Retrieved 17 April 2024.