Synchrotron infrared spectral regions as signatures for foodborne bacterial typing

Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy has emerged as a viable alternative to biochemical and molecular biology techniques for bacterial typing with advantages such as short analysis time, low cost and laboratorial simplicity. In this study, synchrotron radiation-based FTIR (SR-FTIR) spectroscopy with higher spectral quality was successfully applied to type 16 foodborne pathogenic bacterial strains. Combined with principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), we found that the specific spectral region 1300-1000 cm(-1), which reflects the information of phosphate compounds and polysaccharides, can be used as the signature region to cluster the strains into groups similar with genetic taxonomic method. These findings demonstrated that FTIR spectra combined with HCA have a great potential in quickly typing bacteria depending on their biochemical signatures.